[00:00] Sometimes when our Lord is speaking to His apostles, from what we hear in the Gospels, it's not always exactly apparent what our Lord is trying to teach them. And when we listen to the words of our Lord today, you know, when He says, "I will send you the Spirit of truth," says the Lord, "He will guide you to all truth."

[00:30] That's a pretty simple statement that we can all understand. But when He says, "But if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you," you would think, well, He was here when You were here because You were working miracles and everything. But what our Lord is speaking about is that He had to present, He was the priest, the sacrifice, and He had to present Himself to the Father; the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the Holy Spirit

[01:01] would be the fruits of that sacrifice. So He had to present Himself to the Father. And when our Lord is saying that when He comes, "He will convict the world in regard to sin, righteousness, and condemnation." "In regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me," He's going to convict the world

[01:32] that Jesus was the truth, the way, and the life. Righteousness for all those who believe because they have to come to that belief that our Lord wants them to come to, that degree of faith, that although we do not see Him, we believe in Him. There's a certain level of faith. As He said to St. Thomas, "You have believed because you have seen, but blessed are they who have not seen yet believe."

[02:06] Why? Because our Lord is like a good father, or even if you look at God the Father, God the Son, He is like a great teacher. He doesn't want us to remain at just one little small degree of holiness. He wants us to reach the maximum degree of holiness, and it is through the righteousness that He offers us that we come to that, but part of the requirement is that we come to that faith.

[02:38] Condemnation because our Lord conquered death. He conquered death and sin, and the one who brought that sin and that death into the world because of his influence was the devil, and the ruler of this world has been condemned, meaning all power has been taken away from him because our Lord paid the debt. So it's only a matter of time before the devil himself will be judged.

[03:08] In fact, our Lord says that he has been judged already. He has been condemned. It's just a matter of everything playing out in time until the last day when our Lord decides everything has been completed, and sometimes we forget exactly what all this means because of the fact that we were born into a world around us that is Christian by nature almost.

[03:38] Everything that the Holy Spirit was sent to do has been somewhat accomplished in the Christian society that we live in, but when we think of the history of the world or even if we sort of expand our horizons a bit to these countries that Christianity is either just a new religion or hasn't even arrived yet, then we can see exactly what it is that the world needs to be convicted about

[04:11] because for us, you know, the commandments, it's sort of almost like built into society, and we struggle with a few other things, weaknesses of the flesh and just weaknesses of regular human nature, but as far as the actual control and rule of the devil, it's a little bit different. We realize that more when we think of the Aztecs. When Cortes first came to the Aztecs, they were sacrificing human beings

[04:42] and it was part of the society. They didn't have Christian principles. They, all these people, they fell away from even the natural knowledge of God, and through evil, through that tendency to sin, they fell under the control of the devil. Then you look at what happens to St. Paul and Silas and those who were missionaries. They're beaten, they're scourged,

[05:14] they're beaten with rods, thrown in jail. That was part of what they had to go through in order to spread the Gospel. All the apostles died martyrs. Even St. John, who didn't die a martyrdom, he died a martyrdom vicariously, and we still celebrate him as a martyr because he was immersed in oil, dipped in oil, boiling oil, and he survived miraculously. But the point being is that you can go down a whole list

[05:45] and you can think of all these different, like, for example, when I was in Benin, Africa. In Benin, Africa, you look on the calendar, the different things, and it says the only official religion in Benin, Africa is voodoo. You know, there's so many things there that I could describe that I saw that show that there's even a difference of mentality when it comes to the respect for life or just basic things that we take for granted

[06:15] in the Western world. Those are the things that missionaries have to encounter, that they have to face, and our Lord knew that. So when our Lord speaks of the world being convicted in regard to sin, righteousness, and condemnation, we have to realize that this conviction has already taken place for the most part in our society, but at the same time,

[06:46] we can't let off the gas pedal a little bit because our society, obviously, is not perfect. We can look at many different things and people, individuals, and the many areas where, obviously, we have a lot of work to do, and that we've fallen away from previous heights, but for the most part, we are the ones who are called to keep the darkness at bay. We are the ones who are being asked by our Lord

[07:17] not just to come to practice the commandments, but to go beyond that, to be an example, as St. Paul and Silas were, and they were able to be instrumental in the conversion of this guard who saw all the events, but also saw the example of Paul and Silas, and he converted. We are the ones; Our Lady had to go to the Aztecs, and it was so bad that she appeared to them, and over nine million of them were converted

[07:49] in just a few years. So many converted that the missionaries could barely raise their arms at the end of the day from baptizing constantly. So you can imagine how many converted, if it was, what, seven, eight years, and nine million converted, that's an astonishing amount, that how many baptisms were they having every single day with just a few missionaries. Not literally a few, but a very small amount,

[08:21] and we have to understand that we are that light in the world. We are the salt of the earth. So our Lord is always convicting us of becoming better, of growing in the faith, of being better examples, to really work at the things that we know that we should be working at, to understand that, yes, although we're sort of in a buffer zone here, whether it's just the Western world in general,

[08:51] we have to do our part to keep that level of society up to the level which is run by Christian principles, because as soon as we let off the gas pedal a little bit and we get complacent, we can see in society it always wants to creep back in, that evil and sin, that the unrighteousness that our Lord was trying to convict the world of

[09:21] and that He sent the Holy Spirit to convict the world of becomes weak. And it's our part. On our part, we have to be that continuous light in the world, the example to those who come after us so that they might have a way of knowing the truth, the way, and the life who is Jesus Christ.

[09:52] And if we do this, then we will see the fruits of our labors. We will see the miracles that St. Paul and St. Silas saw. We will see the conversions, the moral miracles in our lives. And it only takes a little bit and after some time, you'll see the difference in society. And I can tell you that for a fact, because living in Canada, where I was, same type of area, same people.

[10:25] And, but for years, they've been suffering under a lot. They don't even see any religious in that diocese. There's so many things. They don't have a lot of the access to the things that we have here. And it's because certain people have got in control and only a short bit of time. And they lose the faith, really. You know, the people themselves have a faith,

[10:56] but they don't have everything that I see, especially in the States, the movements of orthodoxy and many different things. Just an example, I went to my cousin's place and it's further north than where I was living, six hours north, and they haven't had a parish priest for years. And when I went up there, my aunt, or like a few people were asking me,

[11:27] got into a discussion about the priesthood. Well, when's the Pope gonna allow women priests? When's this gonna happen? When's that gonna happen? And I'm looking at them like, what? And I realized that, man, "you strike the shepherd and the sheep scatter." They hadn't had a priest in their parish. And the nearest Mass that they could go to would be an hour away. And just from that distance made it that they sort of lost the faith up there.

[11:57] Their faith was all over the place. And I realized, wow, there's a big difference. You know, as soon as it only takes, you know, five, six, seven years, and next thing you know, they're in darkness. And then you add to that 30 years without a regular priest, and maybe only having a deacon to give Holy Communion once a month in the church. Or every so often, them sending a priest just to celebrate Mass,

[12:28] to renew the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle. So you can see how easily it can creep in. And before you know it, you lose that very foundation of the society, a Christian society that was built up. So let us always do our part and allow God, or through the good dispositions, allow the Holy Spirit to convict us more and more of righteousness and of sin in our lives

[13:02] so that we can always be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, which keeps at bay the darkness that's always waiting to take over.