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I'd like to start with a word about that YouTube video that I mentioned, and it was about how space is scary. That terrifying scale of the cosmos, that vast, seemingly infinite space between the celestial bodies and the trillions of galaxies. We tend to question the meaning of our existence. And because there's still so much to be discovered, it can be scary or frightening. The way that a child is afraid of the dark. Even life right here on Earth can be frightening. There's a lot to be discovered in the depths of the oceans, for example. There's still places on this Earth that we've never been. There are questions about what lies beyond the horizon when you talk about dealing with people from other nations or belief systems, for example. And then there's just the human experience of time, which is a uniquely human experience, bringing with it questions about the unknown future. So life in general is frightening, not just space. There's a lot of mystery right here on Earth. I mention that because I think the greatest mystery of all is what's happening in the the human heart. When we recognize that we desire a relationship with that infinite space, we have a desire for what is not finite, but what is infinite. That's a strange thing to acknowledge, and it's frightening to consider it. It's happening in the depths of the human heart, underneath and affecting all of my other desires. There's this desire for the infin, Like the Hubble telescope, for example, is showing us with clarity that there is a seemingly infinite mystery into which our universe is expanding. So the created world is moving into something seemingly infinite, a way of describing what we long for as human beings. We're created, and we long to move into a relationship with the infinite, the way the cosmos sort of long for that space. So there's something equally mysterious happening in the human heart, this attraction to infinity. Is it possible that's what we asked yesterday, that we are even more afraid of that desire for the infinite that than we are of space? Or that we might sometimes be projecting our fear of inner space onto outer space. This is what I asked the creator of the YouTube video. In a comment, I asked him to consider whether our desire for a relationship with the infinite, including wanting to make a YouTube video about the cosmos, even my own wanting to leave a comment to reach out to this guy in some way, because his video did say that therefore any attempts to make sense of our lives is merely human folly. Meaning, like all religions would fail in their effort to touch this infinite. Because he smuggled that in, you know, to his video, punctuating Every one of his thoughts with some word about, therefore there's no God. I really wanted to reach out to him, to say, look, don't you think it's at least as interesting, if not as real, as the cosmos itself, that we have a desire in our heart for a relationship with the infinite? And if there is a desire for the infinite in me, how did it get there? Or even before the how, who put it there? I know it must be a who, because when I look at it with scientific honesty, if I look at it in reality and humbly, it has personal qualities to. Makes itself recognizable to me by longing for connection, community, affection. It has all the characteristics of this kind of attraction that leads to the kind of intimacy that brings life into being. That's why it feels like our first desire, something underneath and affecting all the other desires. Like a foundation to my very life. It seems to have been put there by God. In fact, it seems to be a share in his desire for me, for communion with us. Since we didn't give ourselves life in this world. Where did this desire come from? It's in every human heart too, by the way, not just Christians. St. Augustine said it this way. He felt like all of creation was saying to him, we did not create ourselves, like everything created was saying, I did not make myself. You're looking for the Creator. In your fascination with me, you are manifesting your desire for Him. And then he says, you have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. You know, your creation awakens in me a desire for you, but it does not fulfill it. Only you, Lord, would fulfill that desire. You see? So here's the bridge then, into the readings from yesterday's Mass and what we said about them. So if we can agree first, as we just did, hopefully, that there is a desire in our heart for perfect, infinite love that only God can fulfill, then maybe there's something to be learned by asking why it's scary for us to acknowledge this desire. Maybe I'm afraid it won't be fulfilled because I've been betrayed by people who were supposed to love me in the past but failed to. So I don't want to ask God to love me now because I don't want to be disappointed by God. I will not be able to handle that. Maybe I'm scared to look at this desire because I'm just worn out from the disappointment and the exhaustion that comes from trying to squeeze God out of people or places or things. And I'm just exhausted. I'm Like I don't even have it in me. Like I don't know, whatever. If there's a God, great. If not, I don't get. That's the agnosticism, the fatigue, the spiritual exhaustion. The fatigue that comes from trying desperately to squeeze the Creator out of his creation and being unable to. So we're just exhausted. The doom scroll. You know how hard it is to turn to prayer at the end of a doom scroll? You just want to die. It's so hard to turn to him after that because you just feel so dead. It literally drains us. And that desire for God remains, but we're just too tired to even move toward it, to offer our heart to God. Doom. Maybe I'm terrified, though, because I don't want to let him see my sins. The idea of letting him into my heart where he's going to see my sins, the many times I turn to others instead of him, to worship them instead of him, or the many times that I, instead of loving him, love myself, you know, I don't want him to see all that. These are all possible reasons for suppressing the desire for God. But our attraction to him is so strong that it stays. It's always there. And it will come out in sometimes harmless ways, like making videos about the Andromeda Galaxy or something. Or in more damaging ways, like trying to squeeze perfect out of a spouse or a child or a job or out of a bottle or out of drugs or out of some pleasure. This is when we do violence to ourselves and to others, when we try to squeeze perfect out of people who are imperfect. But this is where he comes into view. What if God understands our condition, this fear that we have of our desire for Him? What if he has compassion on us? What if he were to send his son precisely because we have a hard time living from our desire not to condemn us, but to help us? What if he sees our fear of disappointment as going back not only to our own parents, but back to Adam and Eve and how they were deceived and then disappointed each other. And how every single person since Adam and Eve has been afraid of their desire for God? What if he understands that about the human condition? And what if he goes deeper and says, I also understand that you get addicted to things because you're like children who are licking a flyswatter when you're looking for the ice pop. You know it's never going to satisfy you when you go to these things and these people over and over again saying, give me what you're promising me. Give me what you're promising me. Give me what you're promising me. And then the thing finally looks at you, or the person finally looks at you and says, I can't give you what you're looking for. You're looking for God. I am not perfect. You are looking for the infinite. I am not infinite. But he understands that about us, why we call it disordered desire. When I go to something to try to squeeze God out of it, when only God alone can satisfy that desire. And what about our sins, right? The times when our thoughts and words, our actions, what we have done, what we have failed to do through our fault, our own grievous fault, offend God? What. What then? What do we do with our desire for God? Now, the readings this Sunday, they spoke to all of these, all of the reasons I may have for excusing myself from a relationship with Him. So the first reading reminded us that the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds. The lowly, meaning a person who prays from the depth of his heart. When you pray in that kind of sincerity, you pierce the clouds straight through to the cosmos, to the Creator himself. And that prayer does not rest until it reaches its goal. You can hear Augustine saying, our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. But this first reading is saying, this is Sirach. The Most High responds. He hears the cry of the oppressed. He is not deaf to the wail of the orphan. So after this YouTube video, I. I went into the chapel and I was full of, like, doubt at myself, you know, as a priest, all sorts of questions about whether I'm just giving myself to an institution which just has so much historical and cultural momentum and now ordained to represent it before a couple thousand people that I can't possibly stop this thing. It has too much movement, and I don't want to hurt people. So I'm just going to ride this out. Or are you really with me, Lord? Do you. Are you really calling? Are you really touching my heart? Have you really called me to this priesthood? And are you truly with me in the Eucharist like this? Or am I just making this up? And I'm not asking you, Lord, to make me rich. I'm not asking you to make me successful. I'm not even asking you for health. I'm just asking you, are you with me? Are you here? This is the cry. I'm not asking for anything. And I know I've got nothing but please. And you know, in an indescribable, undefinable way, he responds and those of you who have prayed like that, like a poor man, you know that. You know that he hears you and he responds. And you know, you can't just tell someone what it's like. And that's why this is tough, especially in dealing with our children or our friends and people that we want to know the love of God. Because you can't just tell to someone. It can only be experienced by the person who opens his or her heart to God, who is willing to live from that desire for him and to take him at his word that he will fulfill that desire. Or as we heard in the psalm yesterday, the Lord hears the cry of the poor. Those whose hearts are crushed in spirit, he saves. Like this video. That's why I'm talking about. It was crushing. Man, I love the cosmos. I watch a lot of Brian Cox. I listen to a lot of stuff from these scientists, these astrophysicists, even if they're atheists, I still think they're fascinating. But this video, because he would smuggle in a constant doubt of man's attempts to make any sense of his life, it threw me into a little bit of a spin, and I felt kind of crushed because it hurts to be so disdained by a world that I love. So now the second reading from St. Paul to Timothy. Everyone deserted me, right? Disdained by a world you love. St. Paul says, they didn't stand by me in my time of trial, but the Lord stood by me and gave me strength. That's what it felt like in the chapel that night after watching this video. Because I don't think a relationship with God means that now we can't love science or love sports. He's not in competition with his own creation. He gave us life, he wants us to have it, but he's teaching us through Christ. And this is why I'm so passionate about holding this out to you. If we don't allow Him, God to fulfill that desire for him, that fundamental, foundational desire, we will try to squeeze him out of something or other person in this world. And that person or that thing will disappoint us and we will resent it. And we will either divorce it or destroy it for betraying us. But positively, if I have a relationship with God now, I am free to let everything be imperfect, let everything be finite at best, becoming more perfect, but always something incomplete in a sense. On the way, St. Paul, when he said everyone deserted me, he said, but do not hold this against them. He's talking to the community, saying, when I got arrested and Put in prison, people ran away. But you know, because I was arrested and put in prison, I cried out to the Lord in my poverty, and he came to me and gave me strength. So tell those who deserted me, I do not condemn them. In fact, I thank them because it led me to cry to the Lord in a way where he has come to me, in such a way where he is now my strength. And all that awaits me now is to see him, the One for whom my heart longs. And he will show Himself to all who have longed for his appearance. That's what he says, his appearance to those who long for him. That's what St. Paul's teaching. That's why I'm talking about the desire of the heart a lot. It's to those who long for him. And so then, of course, the gospel yesterday, it commended specifically to us the way that the tax collector allowed God to love him even as he had sinned. So he says, oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh God, I let you love me now, even though I have closed my heart to you sometimes and not seldom. Jesus said about that man, and so about anyone who praise like this, whoever humbles himself will be exalted. And that's really what yesterday was about, staying humble before God. And humble just means, as I heard a priest describe it recently, preferring reality. Preferring reality. The reality of the cosmos, for example, but also the reality of my desire in my heart to be loved by the infinite love that created the heavens and the earth and all that they contain. And that the desire in my heart for God would. Would so reign right as to reorder all of the other desires in my heart so I could be happy to be alone. And we said yesterday, and I think a lot of you found this interesting because you seem to be kind of leaning into it, that even when I sin or after I sin, I can please God by allowing him to love me, by allowing him into my heart even after I've sinned. Because if the desire in my heart for God is actually his desire for me, then the contrition I feel in my heart when I sin, the sorrow is really his heartbreaking for me, it is the anguish that Christ feels for me until my salvation is accomplished. It's so much more tempting to say, I probably ruined it. You can't possibly love me now. The evil one comes around saying, you're a hypocrite. He's going to give up on you. He's going to move on and try with someone else. You're never going to change. You just get worse. You continue to return to your own vomit like a dog. But I know that when I let him love me, oh, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, that he touches my heart with his mercy. And then I can say I am sorry. And I know that if I can say sorry, if I really am sorry, that must be his grace at work in me. I know that when I say I'm sorry, he hears, I love you. And that led to the last words of yesterday's homily, which were about a movie, about a film and about St. Peter. The film I referenced was called the Crossing Guard, was written and directed by Sean Pennsylvania. The movie's about a man who killed a little girl named Emily while he was driving drunk. The man goes to prison and he repents. He even bangs his head against the bars, wishing he could die. Emily's father, played by Jack Nicholson, is waiting for this guy to get out of prison. He's counting down the days. And when he gets out, he hunts down his daughter's killer to kill him. Okay, now, the chase ensues for quite a time toward the end of the film. And this man who killed Emily runs and runs and runs and runs through the town, and he goes all the way to the cemetery, and he falls at Emily's grave. And Emily's father finds the man kneeling and weeping at her tomb, saying, your father is coming. He's crying, your father is coming. I need your help. You gotta help me. Imagine he ran to Emily. So both men then meet there, and then they're crying together at the grave. For Emily, of course, but more so for themselves. The question is, is how could he run to Emily? How could he ask Emily to help him? How could her killer dare to ask her for help? And we're left with that same mysterious response to this. It's indescribable and undefinable. As much as the cosmos, that Emily knew his heart better than anyone. The depths of his heart, you know, were known to her. He would have wept to her and cried out to her so many times. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that she became like his greatest help. The depths of his heart were laid bare to her. No one knew him the way that she did. It's the same reason we can cry out to Jesus for help, the one we crucify with our sins. If we allow him into the place where the sin comes from, we are allowing him into the deepest part of our heart. The desire for God and now Christ knows us better than anyone and can become for us the greatest help that we have to salvation. All right. And that's why we gave the last word to St. Peter. Now, very simply, we said that St. Peter is the one who says, on the one hand, depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. But on the other hand, says, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life meaning. I know that I turn from you and that I give myself to other things other than you. But I will not deny that desire in my heart for you. When you speak, Lord, you awaken in me that desire for God. And I love you for that. And I'm not leaving you, even though I sin. See that? That's what St. Peter's like. This man lives from the depth of his heart. He lives from that desire. He is the most courageous man. In that sense, It's the same man. He acknowledges his sin but stays true to that desire in his heart, which loves God inasmuch as he longs for God. See, Peter knows that the best we can do in this world when we say, I love you, Lord, is to say, I long for you, Lord. St. John said this just in case you think we're making excuses here. It is not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us. The desire for God in our heart is his perfect desire for us. We, because of sin, can only manifest it imperfectly. But he'll take it. He'll take it. Which is why Peter was able to say to our Lord after he denied him by not going to the cross and even saying he didn't know Jesus, he jumps into the water and swims to him on the shore. When he sees that he's raised from the dead and he says, lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Now, what he's saying is, you told me I would betray you. You told me I would. So you know everything. So if you know that, and you know everything, you know that underneath my fear, underneath the weakness in me and the cowardice that tends to deny you, you know that underneath that I love you. You see what Peter's like. He lives from that desire. And that's the foundation not only of his own heart, but that Christ built this church on. On Peter's willingness to speak boldly from the depth of his heart. Remember when Peter. Christ changed his name from Simon to Peter at a place called Caesarea Philippi? When. When Jesus said, who do men say that I am? And Peter says, I think you are the Christ The Son of the living God. Like, what the. What Peter just spoke on behalf of, like, the depth of the human heart right there. That's his boldness to say to. To Jesus, I think you are the Son of the Creator of the cosmos. Okay, all right. Just the fact that he's willing to speak from that place in his heart to articulate that desire, that's the rock on which this church is built. That's why I love the expression Peter's boat. The church is just Peter's boat sailing through the ages. And it's been traditionally referred to as that, you know, I will make you fishers of men. And what is it that really attracts people into communion in the church? Not our pretending to be perfect, nor our walking away discouraged and giving up on God because of our imperfection. But the one thing that makes you a fisher of men is if you say, I am a sinner and I am staying with him. I know this about him. He would rather that I deny him than that I deny my desire for the Father. When I say the word deny, I mean, like, to be unfaithful to him at times, to go elsewhere, to go astray like sheep, but to trust that he will bring us back. He would rather we put our sins on him than that we would walk away from the Father. You see how he really has taken upon himself our sins. So I will turn to you now, whenever I die the death of sin, practice letting you raise me up from that grave, celebrating your mercy in the sacrament of confession, but turning to you every time I fall, saying, I know that even now you love me, and especially now that you draw near to me when I sin. You are closest to me after I sin, when I open my heart to you. And then with the psalmist, what is man that you think of him, mortal man, that you care for him? Who am I to you, Lord, that you would come to me?