Today, at the beginning of this retreat, we celebrate St. Francis Xavier, who baptized
so many. In fact, his arm is in a glass reliquary that he used to baptize in Gesù, I believe,
in Rome. And when we look at a man like that, when we look at who it is the Holy Father
has placed before us to be our example, we see the Kyrie of ours. We see a man who did
two things, for the most part, throughout his whole life. He heard confessions incessantly
and he celebrated Mass. He confected the Eucharist. And when we unite and get together for a retreat,
we do so for one purpose, and that is to pray.
To fall in love more deeply than we were before. You know, each one of us have been through
many retreats. I know I have. And so many of those retreats come and go. And I try to
think of how many of them I remembered. Very few, I'm sorry to say. And the reason is because
perhaps I didn't enter into them the way I needed to. I need to understand every single
day those very powerful words that we used to say,
which we used to find in every sacristy.
Oh, priest of God, celebrate this Mass as though it were your first Mass, your last
Mass, your only Mass. And in reality, when you think of it, shouldn't we enter into everything
that way? You know, death is something that we all have to deal with. It is one of the
great equalizers. It puts things in proper perspective, especially retreats, especially
the lives, especially day-by-day living. If we only understood the truth that we don't
tomorrow yesterday is gone let the dead bury the dead but we definitely don't have tomorrow
but we have now we have today every time I try to prepare myself for mass the only thing that
really makes a difference is if I realize that it might be my last that I might really be
confecting this great and wondrous sacrament for the last time that I may hold the Lord for one
last time before I will close my eyes and open them to look into his and that's really what a
retreat is about it it's to prepare ourselves but this particular retreat is something wondrous
because we're going to have a prince of the church coming here to
to open to us this magnificent concept of being a shepherd
shepherd means a lot of things to a lot of people and there are a lot of shepherds a lot
of people that are doing this and a lot of people that are doing this and a lot of people that are
of people call themselves shepherd, but what makes us different? That's the thing that we have to
understand, that there's a difference in who we are as shepherd compared to every single other
shepherd on the face of the earth. What is that difference? In that difference is found our very
identity. If we were like every other shepherd, we would just be social workers, and God knows
there's enough of those. We don't need any more. We are spiritual men. We are men who are placed
in front of those souls who are facing heaven and hell, and we are the ones responsible
for inspiring them to want heaven. You and I know that heaven and hell are choices.
Every single person in hell is a volunteer, and so what we have to do is inspire them to want
heaven.
To want the divine, to want to pray, but if we do not, if we do not understand the great mystery
of faith, this beloved cardinal is coming here, and he's going to be presenting such a beautiful
faith to us, but that faith is so much more profound. It's nothing like every other faith
on earth. This faith enables us to touch the divine. It not only enables us to touch the divine,
but it enables us to touch the divine.
It allows us to transcend time and space and literally be at Calvary. That's going to be the
first conference. I have to do that. This is the year of faith, and so what we're going to do is
we're going to see in a very simple way something that I think is important for us to witness
to every person that we meet, and that is what is mysterium fide? What is it in the light of our
being shepherds, pastors, being men of God, being men of God, being men of God, being men of God,
being men who love God and who bring him to each person we meet. So I ask that you enter into this
retreat as though it were your only retreat, your last retreat, your first retreat, and I know that
may sound hokey, but it isn't. It's extraordinarily important because we have this one shot.
You know, I could drop dead at the end of this. I always am aware of that because I got a hole in
my head, which just proves what my mother always told me when I was a kid because I had a brain
tumor and it made a hole in my head. I could drop dead at the end of this. I always am aware of that
hole from an infection, and so I'm constantly living with the specter. I could drop dead at any
moment, but I'll tell you this. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me because I really
take my priesthood serious as a heart attack, and that's what I want us all, I would like all of us
to do in this wonderful moment, these wonderful hours. Don't let them pass without literally
entering into your contemplation and your meditation into the mysteries of our faith,
and when our beloved Cardinal arrives, we can see the great richness and the depth of our faith and
be proud to be part of such a wonderful faith, to be part of this great mystical body of Christ
as shepherds.