Homily for Ordinary Time 13 - June 27, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 13

June 27, 2021

Until Heaven

 

            A few years ago, when I left St. Benedict’s Church in Stamford, the fifth-grade CCD class chipped in to get me a book. I was very grateful to receive the present, but when I unwrapped it I found that they had gotten me a book by St. Alphonsus Liguori called “Preparation for Death”. Was there some sort of subliminal message there?

            I suppose leaving a place is somewhat like a death, and our readings today speak about death. But I don’t want to preach on death today, to end my time here at St. John’s on a morbid note – although, of course, for Christians, death should be a joyous thing as we are reunited with the One Who loves us infinitely.

            But upon further reflection, these readings really aren’t about death, but about life – finding life, being restored to life. Not just biological life, but the abundant, fulfilling life that comes when we encounter Jesus Christ.

            There is a difference, of course. Many people are walking around, breathing, eating, going to work and school – and they have no idea why. They are not really alive, just surviving. Once when I was teaching Confirmation class at a different parish, I had a kid named Matt in my class. He was the typical uninterested teen – bored, surly – but as the year progressed, he started asking good questions and really diving into his faith. The next year he got involved in our youth program and told me he had been praying the Rosary daily. I asked him what changed – how did he go from not caring about Jesus to suddenly being a disciple? He said something I’ve never forgotten: “I felt like I was living my life half-asleep, and now I’m finally awake.”

            Yes, and many of us are living our life half-asleep, because we are just taking up oxygen and not really sure if we want to follow Jesus. Perhaps we feel like we can’t follow Him because we’re too much of a mess. But look at the Gospel – Jesus takes people who are wounded, who are a mess, who are dead – and brings them back to life, to restoration. The woman with the hemorrhage didn’t say, “Oh, I’m too much of a mess for Jesus.” The family of the daughter didn’t say, “Oh, she’s already dead, there’s no more hope for her.” On the contrary! Like those broken, wounded people in the Gospel, we can say to Jesus, “Lord, I’m a mess, I fail all the time, I’m imperfect and weak and dead – heal me, raise me to life!” And we bring ourselves to the Sacrament of Confession, we pray daily for mercy, and we allow Him to make us fully alive. After all, He is the Savior – and He loves to save us weak creatures!

            So do not let your weakness prevent you from living for Jesus, because He wants us to be truly alive! The happiest moment of my life took place a few years ago when I was leading a father-son pilgrimage to Italy. We were all in Assisi, which is the coolest little town – it looks perfectly preserved from the 1300s, and you can sense the holiness there along those streets where Francis and Clare walked. After dinner, despite a spattering of rain, we decided to hike up to the highest point in town, an old 800-year-old fortress that overlooked the entire Umbrian valley. We had just reached the top when the skies parted and a dramatic rainbow covered the sky from one end to the other. It struck me that this was a foretaste of Heaven – here I was, with some of my favorite people in the world, in a place of holiness and surpassing beauty, to praise God and glorify Him. Can it get any better than that?

            And if this is what Heaven is like, let us live for Heaven here! Even the suffering we endure on this earth is “nothing compared to the glory to be revealed”, says St. Paul. We don’t need to wait until Heaven to become fully alive – as a wise priest once told me, “Heaven is wherever God is being enjoyed.” If we live for Him, in union with Him, here on earth, then we have brought Heaven into our daily lives.

            And what else can offer such happiness? Can anything in this world truly satisfy us? I know a young man who, when he was a freshman in high school, refused to go to his school dance where they would be playing raunchy music and gossiping and dancing immorally. His mother tried to convince him to go, but he resisted and said, “Why do you want me to go so badly?” She replied, “You need to experience the world!” He responded, “I have seen the world, and I don’t want it.” What the world says is happiness – make a lot of money, have a lot of fun, drink and indulge every lustful pleasure, become powerful and influential – does any of that really lead to the real, abundant life that Christ wants for us? That our hearts really desire?

When St. Faustina was a young teen, she felt a strong call to become a nun. But she kept postponing it and putting it off, figuring that it was too hard. Even though she loved God, she said to herself, “First I want to see what the world has to offer!” One day when she was about eighteen, she and her sister went to a nightclub for a dance with hundreds of other people, jammed into a tiny club. She was having a great time, but something was off…something in her conscience bothered her. As she was dancing, all of a sudden the dance floor seemed to empty and everyone faded away from her sight. Instead, across the room, appeared Jesus Christ, covered in blood and wounds and walking to her. He said to her, “Faustina, how much longer will you put Me off?” After He asked the question, He disappeared and the dance continued like usual. But Faustina was shaken. White as a ghost, she fled the dance hall, ignoring her sister’s questions, and went straight to the nearest convent of nuns where she stayed all night in the chapel, and when the sun came up she asked for admission to the convent. For all that the world could offer, Jesus was calling her to a more abundant life.

So my final words to you at St. John’s today are not about death, but about life. If you want to be truly happy, fully alive – live for Heaven here, and strive to be a saint.

Homily for Ordinary Time 12 - June 20, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 12

June 20, 2021

Fear of the Lord

 

            We may know St. Bernard as a breed of dog, but there actually is a Saint named Bernard of Menthon – and he is the patron saint of mountaineers and outdoorsmen. Born in a small Italian town in the Alps, his tutor used to take him on long hikes through the mountains, where Bernard was in awe of the grandeur and the beauty. Through the beauty of nature, he fell in love with the God Who created it, and became a priest. Later, he founded a monastery in a remote mountain pass where he and his monks could offer hospitality to travelers on the difficult journey over the mountains. They trained large dogs to help them rescue stranded travelers – dogs that later became named after the saint himself, St. Bernard.

            There is an awesome power in nature to help us encounter God. Jesus reveals Himself in the calming of the storm, and Job is in awe of God’s mighty power in the forces of nature. What is it about nature that reveals God to us? Two things.

            First, nature reveals God’s power – which fosters in us the “fear of the Lord”. What is “fear of the Lord?” It doesn’t mean to be afraid of God – rather, it is wonder and awe in His presence. It is a recognition that we are so small in the cosmos, and God is all-powerful.

            Every year I help with Camp Veritas, a Catholic summer camp that many of our younger parishioners attend. The motto of the camp is a perfect summary of Fear of the Lord: “There is a God, and I’m not Him!”

            Nature helps us to recognize this fact. We live in a world where we like to be in control. We spend lots of time and money trying to avoid risks. We control our entertainment, our health, we plan out our jobs and our family life. But can we control a thunderstorm? As much as we might try, can we stop the seasons or build a mountain? Nature is wild, untamed, powerful – and it reminds us that God is in control. Thus, it helps us develop “fear of the Lord” – that humility which recognizes God’s greatness and our nothingness. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” it says in Scripture – because fear of the Lord puts us in the proper place in the cosmos. It helps us to realize that while we are loved infinitely and unconditionally, we are NOT the center of the universe. And being around nature helps us to realize this fact!

            The second thing that nature helps us realize about God is His providence, which leads us to trust Him. Edwin Conklin, one of Einstein’s close associates, once said, “The probability of life [on this earth] arising from an accident is comparable to the probability of an unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a print shop.” Imagine that scene – a print shop explodes, with ink and letters and papers flying everywhere – and all of a sudden an unabridged dictionary randomly falls from the sky? That’s pretty far-fetched! Just as a dictionary is the product of an intelligent person who writes it, so the complexity of nature, the way in which it all fits together, the water cycle and the food chain and the rhythms of the seasons all point to a good God who arranged it and causes it to flourish.

            Even Jesus uses the example of nature to show the goodness of God. “Look at the lilies of the field,” He says to His disciples. “Look at the birds of the air. If God takes care of them, how much more will He take care of us, His children made in His image!” When we consider how God arranged this beautiful, awesome (in the truest sense of the word) world of nature, we realize that He is a good Father, and we ought to trust Him.

            So nature is a powerful place to encounter God. It shows us God’s power, which leads to fear of the Lord, and it shows us God’s providence, which leads us to trust Him as a Father. As the weather warms up and we have more free time this summer, disconnect from your smartphone and air-conditioned living room, and get outside to experience God in His temple, His cathedral – in the very world that He created and sustains.

Homily for Ordinary Time 11 - June 13, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 11

June 13, 2021

Seen and Unseen

 

            In just a few moments, we will profess in our Creed that we believe God created things “visible and invisible.” Much of our faith is unseen – grace, the human soul, angels and demons, Heaven and Hell, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist – even God Himself. Our Scriptures today speak about the unseen realities of our faith. St. Paul tells us that “we walk by faith, and not by sight,” and Jesus makes it clear that the Kingdom of God is not something that we can sense or measure.

            How can we believe in these invisible realities of our Faith? Some say that we can’t believe in things that we cannot measure. Back in the early 1900s, a scientist once famously said, “How can we believe in God when we can turn a switch and light comes out?” In other words, he believed that science has made God obsolete.

            This is an error called “scientism” – the belief that scientific truth is the only type of truth that exists. But the domain of science is only the material world. Science can only deal with things that can be measured, seen, or touched. By its very nature, then, science cannot make any claim that the material world is the only thing in existence – it cannot disprove the existence of invisible realities. A hundred years ago, a Russian czar tried to disprove the existence of the soul by trapping a man in a barrel until he died and then opening the barrel – and when nothing came out, he declared that there is no such thing as a soul. How silly! These invisible realities are not material, and thus cannot be seen or touched or measured.

            Then how can we believe in them? It is true that we cannot prove the invisible aspects of our Faith, but we do have a lot of evidence for them. Proof means that we can replicate it in a lab, study it, measure it. Evidence means that we experience a lot of things that point to its reality, but cannot definitively prove it. So let’s look at the evidence.

            First, Scripture testifies to these invisible realities. Did you know that out of the 46 books of the Old Testament, angels show up in 31 of them – and almost every book of the New Testament, too. Jesus speaks about the realities of Heaven and Hell, and St. Paul teaches us about grace. The entire Bible, written over the course of twenty-one centuries by a variety of different authors in different locations, agrees that there is an unseen world that God created and sustains.

            Second, it makes logical sense. For example, when we observe the created world, we know that nothing in the world caused itself to exist. A tree came from a seed, which came from another tree, which came from another seed, and so forth. So, logically, there must be a First Creator who set the whole universe in motion – some Being that does not need a cause but is eternally existing. We can know this from logic – we don’t need to see God to believe that He exists. Even something like Heaven and Hell is logical – we know that justice requires that the good be rewarded and evil be punished, but many times we don’t see this happen on earth. Thus, we can logically conclude that there is an afterlife where justice will give everyone the reward or punishment of their conduct on earth.

            A third piece of evidence for the existence of the unseen world is the desires and intuitions of the human heart. We want to live forever – but where would this desire for an afterlife come from? Every human culture in the world has had a religion – from the Aborigines in Australia to the tundra of Russia, from the Amazon tribes to the cathedrals of Europe. The desire to know God is universal. Why would we have such a desire if it cannot be fulfilled? These desires could not have arisen just from material evolution – they must come from an invisible Creator, and they point to an invisible soul and an invisible afterlife that we long to experience.

            A final piece of evidence is the testimony of those who have seen the invisible realm. For example, there have been over 150 Eucharistic miracles in history – the most recent in Poland in 2008 where a Eucharistic Host began to bleed. Many saints have seen angels – for example, St. Gemma Galgani, a young 19^th Century mystic from Italy, saw her guardian angel frequently. One time she was in the company of some friends, who were gossiping about someone who wasn’t present. Gemma was about to join in the gossip when she saw her guardian angel giving her a stern look. She immediately closed her mouth and avoided sin!

            And, of course, many people have had experiences of the next life. We have a priest in our diocese, Fr. Jeff Couture from Norwalk, who had a near-death experience. Before he became a priest, he was a drug addict and a womanizer and basically living a pretty sinful lifestyle. He was out of money for drugs, so he decided to go to a clinic where he could donate a pint of blood for fifty bucks. The nurse at this clinic, however, made a serious mistake and pricked him the wrong way, and he bled to death on the table. He remembers watching his soul rise up out of his body, and then he stood before Jesus Christ. He said that once he looked into the eyes of Jesus Christ, he knew he was condemned to Hell for all eternity, because he couldn’t hide or make excuses in the presence of Truth Himself. Yet he was completely at peace with it, because he knew he had chosen it freely. But then he saw his guardian angel and our Blessed Mother, who intervened with Jesus and asked him, “Will you give him a second chance?” Jesus smiled – and he woke up in a hospital bed. Needless to say, this was the beginning of his conversion!

            So, with all this evidence, can we prove the existence of the unseen world? No, we cannot prove it. Evidence can bring you 90% of the way there – the remaining 10% is where faith comes in. Faith bridges that gap between evidence and a firm assurance. But I think we have enough evidence to conclude that these invisible realms like the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, God and the soul…they really do exist.

            St. Augustine put it best when he said, “Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.”

Graduation Homily for Cardinal Kung Academy - June 13, 2021

 

Homily for Graduation Mass

Cardinal Kung Academy

June 13, 2021

 

            One of the biggest and busiest roads I have ever driven on is the I-405, the loop around Los Angeles. Twelve lanes of pure chaos, noise, smog, congestion. Even with so much “road space”, it’s always full of traffic. In fact, it is named the #1 busiest road in America, with almost 400,000 cars driving on it daily!

            One of the most remote areas I’ve ever been to was on an unnamed trail in the Grand Teton wilderness, backpacking with Wyoming Catholic College (which some of our CKA students participated in). There was a point on the trail where there were no man-made structures (roads, buildings, etc) for thirty miles in every direction!

            Which one would you prefer to be on? Well, there are advantages to I-405. If you want a Dunkin Donuts coffee, you can pull off at the next exit and get one. The road is wide and well-marked, and you’ll never be alone.

            But the trail offers things that you can’t find on a twelve-lane highway. It offers beauty, pure air, exercise, challenge, the joy of being alone with God. Yes, there are hardships. You can’t get there in an air-conditioned sedan; you can’t just pull off for a burger; you have to learn how to read maps and survive in the wilderness. But if I had to pick from the two, I’d say I come alive on the trail in ways I can’t in a traffic jam.

            You all are very much trailblazers here at Cardinal Kung. Only the third graduating class, most of you have been with the school since the beginning. You have seen it grow and triple in size. And in a very real way, you have been the ones to set the tone and the culture of the school – you have been leaders, instituting traditions such as the school dance and the Rabbit Room (still not sure of that name…). And what an adventure it is to blaze a trail!

            But you will be tempted to take a wider, more heavily trod road in the future. The road that the world says you must follow: party in college, fall away from your faith, focus on making money and worldly success. Much like the 12-lane highway, this road that most people take will have its conveniences and pleasures, and certainly you will be surrounded by many others who are taking it. But is it the way to authentic happiness?

            No, the little trail – harder, more arduous – leads to the beautiful views and the clean air. The way trodden, not by great throngs of people, but by the few saints who have dared to walk a different path. It is the path of prayer, the path of suffering, the path of self-denial – and the path to Heaven. It is narrow, to be sure – as Jesus Himself promised – and although everyone desires Heaven, few want to make the sacrifices to get there.

            When St. Faustina was a young teen, she felt a strong call to become a nun. But she kept postponing it and putting it off, figuring that it was too hard. Even though she loved God, she said to herself, “First I want to see what the world has to offer!” One day when she was about eighteen, she and her sister went to a nightclub for a dance with hundreds of other people, jammed into a tiny club. She was having a great time, but something was off…something in her conscience bothered her. As she was dancing, all of a sudden the dance floor seemed to empty and everyone faded away from her sight. Instead, across the room, appeared Jesus Christ, covered in blood and wounds and walking to her. He said to her, “Faustina, how much longer will you put Me off?” After He asked the question, He disappeared and the dance continued like usual. But Faustina was shaken. White as a ghost, she fled the dance hall, ignoring her sister’s questions, and went straight to the nearest convent of nuns where she stayed all night in the chapel, and when the sun came up she asked for admission to the convent.

            For all that the world could offer, Jesus was calling her to a higher life. You, too, are being called to a higher way of life – one where you live for Him alone, study for Him alone, recreate for Him alone, work for Him alone, love Him above all else.

            To do so, you may have to be a trailblazer and not follow the crowd. Whether your path leads to college, the military, or the workforce, it should also lead to Heaven. It’s not easy, but do not be afraid – for the path of following Christ is difficult, but it leads to glory!

Homily for Corpus Christi Sunday - June 5, 2021

 

Homily for Corpus Christi Sunday

June 6, 2021

Eucharistic Coherence

 

            Back in the eleventh century in Trani, Italy, a non-Christian woman was debating her Christian neighbors about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The nonbeliever scoffed at the idea, and claimed that it was just a piece of bread. To prove it to her friends, she decided to secretly steal a Eucharistic host and destroy it, to show that it was nothing more than bread.

            The following Sunday, she attended Mass and received Communion, but immediately took the Eucharist from her mouth and hid it in a handkerchief. She took the Lord home and recklessly tossed Him into pan of boiling oil, intending to fry It to make a mockery of it before her friends. But when the Eucharistic Lord touched the hot oil, it began to bleed most severely, so much so that the blood overflowed the pan and began flowing across the floor. The woman was horrified, and her friends heard her screaming and came to see the miracle. The local bishop was alerted, and came and respectfully returned the Host to the church. As you can imagine, the woman was instantly converted. To this day, you can still see the frying pan, and the house has since become a chapel. In the face of nonbelief, Jesus Christ showed His true presence to this sinful woman in a most miraculous way!

            As St. John Vianney said, “There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us.” But as it is, He gave us Himself. Not just to look at or touch, but to consume, so that our union with God would be physical as well as spiritual. But for this incredible gift of Christ’s True Presence to bear fruit in our lives, it isn’t enough to receive Him – we must receive Him with faith and with a clean conscience.

Our Scriptures today bear witness to the connection between the Eucharist, faith, and a pure heart. In the first reading, God has just led the Israelites out of the Promised Land, and as they wait at the base of Mount Sinai, Moses receives the Ten Commandments. Coming down the mountain, he presents these commandments to the people, and as our first reading puts it, “They all answered with one voice: we will do everything the Lord has told us to do!” So God swears a covenant by sacrifice, and the people promise obedience to His commands.

            But, alas, despite their good intentions, they couldn’t keep the commandments. So God ultimately sent His Son to forgive us for our sins, as we hear in the second reading. This forgiveness comes through sacrifice – the ultimate sacrifice of Christ’s death on the Cross.

            And how do we participate in His Sacrifice? Through the Eucharist. Jesus makes that explicit in the Gospel – this Eucharist we receive is the same Body that was offered on the Cross, the same Blood that was shed upon that tree. But notice something interesting – Jesus does not say that His Blood would be shed “for all” but “for many”. Why? Because the forgiveness and salvation that Jesus offers requires a response: repentance and faith.

            So let’s put these pieces together and apply them to the Eucharist. Our Church teaches that the Eucharist forgives all venial sins. But the Eucharist cannot be received with mortal sins on our soul, because we must be spiritually close with Christ in order to receive Him sacramentally.      Receiving Communion means that we are “in communion” with Him in our souls.

            Right now there is a debate going on in the Catholic Church in America – should pro-choice politicians receive the Eucharist? The question is one of “Eucharistic coherence” – in other words, if Communion is an outward sign of us living our lives in union with Christ, then those who have chosen to live their lives in opposition to Christ or some of His fundamental teachings would be hypocritical to receive Him on Sunday and then deny Him at work on Monday. But this is not just a question for politicians – it is a question for all of us.

            St. Paul himself speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 11, when he says that “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty [of profaning] the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” St. Paul requires two things: faith in the Real Presence (we must “discern the Body”) and a clean conscience (an upright life).

            If a person is sick to their stomach, they have to eat only bland food like rice and applesauce. To eat something strong like blueberries or cayenne pepper might harm them, even though those foods are nutritious for healthy people. In the same way, if a person is spiritually sick through mortal sin, receiving the Eucharist would cause more harm than good, as it would be a sin of sacrilege to receive Him.

            Do you wish for the Eucharist to bear fruit in your life? We must make sure that our lives have “Eucharistic coherence”. Do we approach the altar with a conscience first cleansed in Confession? Do we receive Him on Sunday only to deny Him on Monday? If we wish for the Eucharist to be a profound and true union with God, it must be accompanied with faith in His Real Presence and repentance from our sins.

Commencement Address - Regina Pacis Academy - June 3, 2021

 

Commencement Address

Regina Pacis Academy

Thursday, June 3, 2021

 

            A young Spanish teenager named Josemaria was living a fairly ordinary life. His life was studies, sports, friends, girls…nothing out of the ordinary, until one day he saw a most remarkable sight. He was walking through town on one snowy morning, headed to church, when he saw footprints in the snow from a barefoot Carmelite monk. He was amazed – why would anyone walk barefoot in the snow? This kind of penance only made sense if God was real, and if He was worth giving our entire lives to Him. Suddenly, the trajectory of his life changed, and he later wrote that he felt like he was “being chosen for something.” He became a priest, the founder of Opus Dei, and is now a canonized saint: St. Josemaria Escriva. But he would not be a saint if it weren’t for the faithful witness of an anonymous Carmelite monk.

            That monk was just going about his daily business of sacrificing his life for Christ. He had no idea that he would inspire a future saint. But because the monk was willing to live a radical life for God, millions of other souls were impacted.

St. Catherine of Siena once said, “If you are who you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!” I want to unpack this quote and see how it applies to your life.

We begin with the question: who should you be? It’s easy enough to say “you should be a saint” – because the goal of every life is holiness in Christ. But holiness looks different for everyone. Holiness for a priest is different than holiness as a married person; holiness is different for a high school student than it is from a grandmother. Nevertheless, there are a couple characteristics of holiness that are common to every state in life.

First, holiness consists in a deep friendship with Jesus Christ. In your past many years at RPA, you have learned a lot about Jesus – but have you come to know Him as a friend? Do you speak with Him daily? Do you have a living, active relationship with Him? Do you share with Him your joys and sorrows, your homework and your sports, your friendships and your hobbies? Every saint has this relationship with Jesus as the bedrock of their lives.

But the other quality that all saints have in common is that they do their daily duties to the best of their ability, out of love for God. It may be daunting to think about, but if you end up going to college, that means you have eight more years of school…or more if you get a Master’s degree! Ugh! That sounds awful, right? But no – that is precisely how God means to sanctify you. He gives you everything you need to grow in virtue and become a saint – through the challenges of your schoolwork, through the drudgery of chores, through obedience to your parents, through loyalty to your friends, through kindness to those you don’t like, even through the fun times of sports and recreation. All of this is given to you so you can become holy through it – so don’t waste it!

Okay, so let’s go back to that quote: “If you are who you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!” Now that we know who we should be (saints), what about setting the world ablaze?

You have been given a couple amazing gifts. First, the gift of your Catholic Faith – how awesome it is to never have to wonder about the meaning of life, or if God exists! All the time, I meet with people who are depressed because they think their life is meaningless, or anxious because they don’t know that they can trust their Heavenly Father, or restless because they’re looking for love and they can’t find it. But as Catholics we know what our life is all about, we know the love of our Heavenly Father. Thus, our faith is a great gift!

But you have also received a gift of education and formation at RPA. I’m ashamed to say that by the time you have graduated from RPA, you know more Latin than me…when I sat in on the fifth and sixth grade Latin play a couple weeks ago, I was completely lost! That is a great gift to you – to know truth, beauty, and goodness – to know history and logic and Latin and literature.

But these gifts – your education and your Faith – are not meant for you alone. They are meant so that you can “set the whole world ablaze” – helping others encounter the Truth through Love. You can’t hide these gifts away, but put them at the service of others.

A few years ago when I was chaplain at Trinity, I used to host monthly Adoration for the students – and most students complained about it, because they didn’t really have a deep faith in Christ. One day, a really faith-filled sophomore named Nick came into my office. He plopped down on the couch and said, “Father Joe, I see all my peers who have very little love for God, and my heart is just burning to evangelize. How can I do it?” The next day was our monthly Adoration, so we decided that the best way for him to evangelize was simple: to tell his friends how much he loved Adoration, and how much he got out of it. He excitedly went off to do just that – to try to stir up the love of God in his peers.

And you can do the same. Encourage one another to pray; set a good example of Christ-like love; explain your faith to those friends in your neighborhood or on your baseball team. You have been given a gift, and you are expected to use that gift so well that you bring others to Jesus.

My friends, congratulations. You have worked hard to get to this moment – and God has begun a good work in you. It is good to pause and reflect with gratitude on how far you’ve come. But now, the work begins in earnest – the work of sanctification, the work of spreading the Gospel. You’ve been given many gifts – now go and bring the world to Christ, the desire of our hearts.

“If you are who you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!”