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Welcome to Unpacking the Mass with Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Sunday for the Catholic Church so that when you go to mass, you are ready to hear what God has to say to you through the scriptures. So grab your Bibles and let's get digging. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Unpacking the Mass for the fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Let's begin with a word of prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, we thank you for these readings today, for the way that you cut through what we turn into something so complicated that in reality is something so simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple. Lord, the basics of our faith and what we need to do help us not to confuse ourselves, but rather to focus ourselves on you and your words. In the name of the Father and of the Son and. And of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Have you ever heard the phrase, it's simple, but it's not easy? It reminds me of when I was in wrestling in high school. I went out for wrestling my 10th grade year. I just moved to a new school and I wanted to try something different to make some friends and fit in. I thought, you know what? I'll go off the wrestling team. I had no business doing that. I'd never done that before in my life. No, I wasn't athletic at all. But I thought, I'll try this. So I go out for the wrestling team and of course I'm getting just thrown around and, you know, you see these guys go out there and they look, you think to yourself, I have to learn these intricate moves so I can defeat my opponent. And my coach used to tell me things like, you know, the best wrestlers in the world are the ones that are the best at the basics. Because sometimes we think that the more intricate things are, the more difficult things are, the better they are. When the reality is this. Sometimes it's not the people who have innovated, it's the people who have doubled down on the basics. A single leg takedown, a double leg takedown, a sprawl. These moves, the best wrestlers, he would tell us, and he's right, were the ones that were the best at the basics. Because these simple foundational things need to be in place. Because that's what 90% of this is all about. And that's a true statement or a true concept in lots of areas of our lives, isn't it? It's kind of like with our faith, we think sometimes that we have to find these intricate, deep or new and exciting ways to think about our faith, the practice of our faith. And the reality is, the more we master the basics, the better everything goes. That's what we're kind of talking about today in unpacking the mass. And there's a lot of crossover in many areas of life with this, because the truth is this, the basics, you might think they're boring, but I'm telling you what they are not easy, are they? They're simple, but they're not easy. And that's something that we're going to dig into here with our faith. So let's take a look at our first reading. It comes to us from the book of Zephaniah, and it's a verse from chapter two, and then some stuff from chapter three. Listen to the word of the Lord Here, my friends. Seek the Lord all you humble of the land who do his commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the Lord. For I will leave in the midst of you a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. Those who are left in Israel, they shall do no wrong and utter no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue. For they shall pasture and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Our second reading comes to us from St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Church, chapter one, verses 2631. And he writes these words, for consider your call, brethren. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts boast of the Lord and our gospel. From Matthew 5:1 12 seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. Friends, it's simple, but it's not easy. What we see in these readings today is the importance of getting down the basics of seeking God. Because how we do that matters. And when we do that, when we focus on the basics, it's amazing how many other things will fall into place. We've all seen people who claim to be intellectual giants of the Christian faith. They know all this stuff about these saints. They have all of these church documents memorized. They've got all of this knowledge and all of this expertise. But yet, in the simple of the simple truths of loving your neighbor, they struggle. Have you ever met someone who was really, really righteous and holy, but kind of a jerk? It happens. Now. None of us is perfect, but sometimes there is a lack of emphasis on the simple things, because we think somehow that we need to focus on things that are more exciting, frankly, things that are more unique. But the reality is this, when we do that, we're not making about God anymore. We're making it about ourselves. So what's the answer here? You know, in our first reading, we look at Zephaniah. This is a really interesting text because God is talking to people right after, you know, in chapter, in chapter two and chapter beginning, part, chapter three, he's talking about some bad stuff, some punishment that's going to happen to them. But then he comes back and says, look, there's going to be even in the midst of you guys that are getting punished, a group of you who is going to focus on obeying the simple commands of God. And notice he calls them humble of the land. And what do they do? They do his commands. They seek righteousness. They seek humility. And that, ultimately is what's going to make them unafraid. I want you to keep that in mind. We're going to move on here. But I want you to keep in mind the disposition of these people who the Lord highlights here. They seek the truth, they seek God, they're humble, and because of that, they have no fear. That's essentially what we're going to see Jesus talking about in the Gospel. So how do we do that. How do we master these basics? You know, St. Paul wants us to understand that this is what we're called to do. And what's cool about this is he's saying you got to keep it simple. Notice what he's calling us to here. He's saying, look, you guys weren't the top of the class. You guys weren't the strongest of the strong. God chose you who are weak to be strong, who are fools to be wise, basically is what he's saying. Because according to the way of the world, Jesus message is totally upside down. The world's message is a message of self determination and self acquisition. But Christ's message is of humility. The world's always telling us to think more about ourselves, to take care of ourselves. Get yours. But what is Christ saying? If you want to follow me, you've got to be humble. That's the basic truth. Think about that. Like I said before, when it comes to something like wrestling or whatever, that's. You get the basics down, everything else is going to come together. In Christianity, humility is the single leg takedown, the basic move that you learn day one, but that you spend your life mastering. That's what we have to understand, friends. It begins with this humility. That's why Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That's a type of humility. Poor in spirit is not. Oh, I'm destitute. No, poor in spirit is, I have nothing that I claim for myself other than what God has given me. Poor in spirit is. I'm entitled to nothing, I claim nothing. And I am identifying myself as one who is dependent on God, not dependent on self. Someone who isn't poor in spirit is like, I got a lot, I got a lot going on. I can handle things. But what Jesus is saying is, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That's the baseline. That's the basic. How do we do that, My friends? Have you ever tried to be humble? It's hard, isn't it? Humility is not a skill. Humility is a fruit. If you think about it like when we pray the rosary, the spiritual fruit of humility is from the first joyful mystery, right? The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation, right? She's receiving this news from the angel Gabriel that is really going to blow up her life. She doesn't understand it, but what does she do? She's poor in spirit. She says, be it done unto me according to thy word. I am the handmaid of the Lord. I'm. I'm nothing to myself. I belong to him. That's the ultimate humility. And she received the kingdom of heaven, right? She literally received the king. She gave us the king. That's a fruit, though, of this recognition of who God is and who we are. You can't force yourself to become more humble. What you have to do is seek the right things in order to be humble. And what is it that we're called to seek? Remember that first reading. We're called to seek the Lord's will, right? What does he say? Seek the Lord, do his commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility. Now you say, well, I'm trying to, but I keep getting hung up. Well, remember the order here. Seek the Lord, do his commands and seek righteousness. Humility will follow. It will follow, my friends. And when it does, then no matter what happens in this world, you're going to be okay. Because God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. He chose what is weak to shame the strong. He chose what is low and despised in the world. Even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are. If you follow God and you truly seek him in the basics of the faith, everything else is going to be handled unto you. Matthew 6:33. We're going to see. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Everything else will be given to you. But why do we struggle with that so much? Because we think it's boring. Because we think that we're above it. Because we don't believe that that's where we should be, right? We think, oh, I moved on. I'm past that. I've been a Christian for years or whatever, I need to be understanding the deep things of the world. You know what? All of that is fine. But if we have not loved the basic things, the ultimate things, then it's nothing, my friends. It's nothing. So Christ gives these basic truths here in the Sermon on the Mount. Poor in spirit, right? Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. It's hard when people are mourning, isn't it, to know what to do to comfort them. But I'm reminded of this text often. But recognition that one of the most powerful feelings you can ever feel is the feeling of being comforted. You know what that's like, don't you? You've been hurting, you've been suffering in some way, maybe emotionally, especially. You know, this is connected to grief here with mourning. It's a tough feeling. And when you know, when you're in the throes of devastating grief, it can feel like, so overwhelming, and you can't even really comprehend that anything's ever going to change. It can be so overwhelming, it can be so all encompassing. And you might feel like this is the feeling that you're going to have your entire life, but then let's just say someone or something is able to give you comfort. That's one of the most amazing feelings, isn't it, to be comforted. And the greater the level of mourning, the greater the appreciation of the comfort. And what Jesus is saying is, you're blessed if you mourn because you will be comforted. Now, does that mean that every single person you know who experiences mourning will be comforted? No. This is, of course, for those who are seeking the Lord, for the poor in spirit. These things in this text build upon one another. You can't just randomly pull one out and say, oh, well, because you mourn, you will be comforted. Some people who have walked away from God, they aren't comforted. Was Judas comforted? He mourned. Right when he. When he realized what he had done, he went to throw back the money to the Pharisees and said, I have betrayed innocent blood. He mourned. Was he comforted? No. Why? Because he turned away from God. But think about Peter. He mourned. He wept bitterly after he denied the Lord, and yet he was comforted by Jesus, who restored him right there on the beach. Think about that. When we are in Christ, when we have pursued him, when we're poor in spirit, we know that our mourning, because we have nothing that we claim as our own, we belong to him completely. We know that he will come to us and comfort us in a way that will be so powerful, that will draw us into such a close relationship with Jesus that we'll look back and go, man, even that difficult thing that I went through was ultimately a blessing because of how it drove me to the Lord. So when you go through tragedy, when you go through heartache, it's either going to drive you closer to Christ, or it's going to drive you away from Him. And that choice is really yours. Blessed are those who are meek. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And, you know, meekness is a word that is sometimes hard to define, isn't it? People define it different ways. Some people think meek is, oh, I'm so meek, like I'm a doormat to the world. It's not what meek means. Meekness, one of the best ways I heard it described I think it was by Father Aaron, and I'm probably going to butcher this, but he basically said, meekness is the ability to tolerate, like, bad things being done to you without demanding revenge. Like, you can tolerate that without stomping your feet and saying, woe is me, and wanting revenge. Meekness is like the ability to do that. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Think about what St. Paul talked about, the weak who become strong. If you're meek, that means that you don't demand everyone bend to your will, even when you've been wronged, but you trust the Lord with that. And when you do, you will inherit the earth. Like things will come to you in that. Because he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. And if you insist on getting revenge every time somebody does something bad to you, then it's just going to keep continuing to spiral out of control until there's no one left. The only one that survives that is the one who says, I'm not playing that game. Where do we need to be meek? Where do we need to say, hey, I'm not demanding retribution for sins committed against me. I'm leaving that to the Lord. That's simple, but it's not easy. Amen. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. I always think about this with the fourth glorious mystery, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, because that's the spiritual fruit, is desire for heaven. I think about her desire. That's a promise. Whoever hungers and thirsts for righteousness will be satisfied. That and she hungered for nothing other than righteousness. And the Assumption really is a picture of that fulfillment, that reward given to her. This is a promise from God. If you focus on him, if you truly seek him, as the scriptures today are calling us to do, so he's not playing games with you. He's not hiding from you. You will be satisfied. That is a beautiful promise, isn't it, my friends? Because so many of us, we really, truly want that. I want to grow in holiness. I want to grow in my faith. Well, God has promised you that if you truly do that, if that's your desire, then that's what's going to happen. Why? Is it really that complicated? No, it's really not. Because if you want holiness, you can achieve holiness. Not by your strength, by Christ working in you, because that's what he's given to you. He's given you that grace to sanctify you, that you might grow in this holiness, by his power. And if that's what you want. That's what will happen. Because that's what God wants. The only reason why we don't grow in holiness is because we don't want to. What? No, that's not true. No, it's true. Maybe I can't speak for you. I'll speak for me. The only reason why I don't have a better prayer life is because I don't want to. The only reason why I don't go to daily mass every single day is because I don't want to. The only reason why I struggle with this particular sin instead of not completely repenting of it and turning away is because I don't want to. You might say, matt, Keith, I thought you were a good Christian guy. You know what I want to be. So wait a minute. What are you talking about? That's the thing. We want that. But then we act in ways that aren't according to that desire sometimes. I mean, think about what St. Paul said in Romans 7. The good I want to do, that's not what I do. But the evil that I don't want to do, that's what I do. Who will deliver me from this body of death? The key isn't more willpower. The key is relationship with Jesus. And that's the beautiful thing. When you draw near to him and you say, lord, I truly want you. He gives you the grace to achieve that. It's when we withdraw from him that our desires get hijacked. So when I say, well, if I really wanted to, it's not about that thing. It's about wanting him more. And that's a hard reality sometimes, isn't it? But he's given us everything that we need to grow in holiness. And the only reason why we're not, because we haven't wanted that more than we've wanted the other things. You're trying to get healthy. What do you want? Do you want health or do you want that cheeseburger you're trying to quit drinking so much? Do you want sobriety or do you want to numb your pain with alcohol or whatever it might be? Whichever one you want more in that moment is the one that's going to rule out. Now, you might be ashamed of that. You might hate yourself for that. You might. Look at that. That's good. Get to confession, repent of that, and ask the Lord to be your desire to transform, your desire to hunger and thirst for righteousness. And, you know, there's that tension between. That's what I really want. But I struggle to do it, friends. That's the fight that we're in. Don't get discouraged. Push forward. Because there's even a reward in that. When we recognize that woe is me. I'm a horrible sinner, you might say. Well, in those moments, am I revealing that I don't really want God? No, you're revealing that you really do. You just need his grace to get you there. That's where the weakness comes in. Isn't that beautiful? When you're weak, he is strong. Don't turn this upside down into some sort of self reliant holiness, willpower experiment, that'll get you in trouble. Remember, the answer isn't more of your strength. The answer is more of your weakness, more of his strength. So we need to turn to him. When we struggle with sin, when we struggle with a lack of desire for holiness, the answer isn't to beat ourselves up and, and say, oh, woe is me. The answer is I need more Jesus. I need to draw close to him. I need to be more poor in spirit, seek the Lord and obey his commands. That's what we're talking about here. If you do that, beautiful things will happen. It's guaranteed. Verse 7. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Hey man, if this one doesn't just cut you in the heart, then you got a problem. This is one of the most important ones of all. If you might not be able to get all this stuff right, you might be like, oh, I try to pray 5 million rosaries a day. I fail. I try to do all this stuff. I fail. I try to fast, I fail, I try to, you know, whatever. And I feel, you know what, we're going to have those moments, but we should have this moment always. This should define us. We should be merciful. This is huge. Remember the meekness, being able to tolerate that bad stuff being done to us without desiring revenge. You see the theme here, how this builds upon that? Why? Now notice blessed are the meek. It doesn't say why they are meek, but this verse does. Because they get it. They can have that meekness and that mercy. Because they have received mercy, they shall obtain mercy. You're only merciful because you have and you will obtain. That's the bottom line. We see this. Remember there's be mercy, be merciful to get mercy. Also realize you already have gotten it. You've already received it and you're going to need more. You might not be this levitating saint who prays a thousand rosaries a day, but you can be Merciful. There's not one of you who can't. We need to do that. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I love that, seeking God. Pure in heart. What does it mean to be pure in heart? It means that. Really. What it means, it's not perfection, it's honesty. That's what pure in heart means. Pure in heart means that in you there's no guile, there's no double speak, there's no. All right, I'm going to try to figure out. Figure out how to convince God that I'm awesome. No, I'm poor in spirit. Remember? These things build upon themselves, right? That's simple, but not easy. Right? The progression here, to be pure of heart might some days just look like you saying to God, I'm a disaster, help me not. Well, it was his fault, right? We've all been there. Pure in heart is. It was my fault. Pure in heart is. Lord, I'm a sinner. Pure in heart is. Have mercy on me. Pure in heart is. Who will deliver me from this body of death. Pure in heart is. Like I said, St. Paul, Romans 7. The good I want to do, I don't do. And the evil I do not want to do. That's what I do. You might say that's not pure heart. Yes, it is. Because pure heart is not perfection. Pure of heart, clarity, it's honesty. And you shall see God if that's who you really. Because he's trying to see you. You got to get all that weird junk out of the way, all that imposter stuff that we put up, all those masks that we wear, all of that self deception and self justification, just get rid of it. And guess what? You'll be able to see God. Because until you do that, what you're seeing is like this weird reflection of yourself from where you've convinced yourself that, well, God won't really judge me because he understands me. God won't really condemn me because he gets what happened to me, because of what other people. And so when you look at God, what do you see? You don't see. You see this, like this fog. But when you strip away all of your pretense and all of your self justification and all that junk, it's just you and God. He sees you and you see Him. The reality is he sees you anyway. You're not fooling him. Pure in heart is about clarity. It's about honesty. And you're blessed if you can do that. It's hard, though, sometimes. We don't like what we see sometimes when we peel back the layers, we look at ourselves, we go, oh, man, I'm ashamed. That's okay. Because that's when you invite God into that space, and that's when his mercy hits you in the heart, right? And that's when you see him. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. There's a difference between a peacekeeper and a peacemaker. You're never called to be a peacekeeper. You know what I'm talking about. Don't say anything. Don't offend that person. Don't, you know, what are you doing? Don't make the sign of the cross at a restaurant. You might offend somebody. Somebody. Don't pray your rosary on an airplane. Someone might see that and get offended. You know, one time I was at a talk in. I think I was in Pennsylvania, and Deacon Harold Sievers was there, and he told this story. I thought it was awesome. He told this story that he was on this in the airport, and he wears this giant crucifix around his neck. And some woman walked up to him, was like, that offends me. And I'm like, I wonder what he did, you know? And he just looked at her and he said, well, then don't look at it. I'm like, how easy was that? He didn't go, oh, I'm so sorry. Or he didn't that morning, hide it underneath his shirt, think, oh, well, I don't want to. I'm traveling. I don't want to offend him. He just said, well, that's your problem. Don't look at it. He wasn't trying to keep the peace. And this isn't what Jesus is saying. Peacemakers, big difference. Peacemaker is helping people to reconcile and to be merciful to one another and to be meek to one another and to be humble to one another and to be obedient to God and to love one another. And, man, that takes humility, too. Because you can't make peace if you're insisting on your way. But you can make peace if you're meek and if you're humble and if you're merciful. And that's what we're called to do. And we do that not by compromising our faith, but by living it out in an even more bold way. But that doesn't mean yelling and screaming in people's face. It just means living it boldly. And not everybody will appreciate it. But that's okay. Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called sons of God. I love that. Where in your life do you need to make some peace? Maybe you need to go and, you know, be that meek person. You've been trying to get revenge on somebody, maybe in passive aggressive ways. I've been living through that a little bit where, you know, somebody's mad at you, but instead of just like working it out, they, you know, want to undercut you or they want to withdraw from you or whatever like that. We know what that's about. Hey, maybe what you need to do instead is work through things, offer forgiveness, maybe have a heart to heart conversation with someone where you can clear the air and figure out what the real issues are. That's making peace. And that's part of what it means to be blessed. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This is powerful because you can't always make peace with everybody. And some people, you know, like St. Paul says, as much as it depends on you, live at peace with others. But there will be some people that are just hell bent on war. And when that comes to you, when you're persecuted, when people hate you because of your faith, remember this, you're blessed. That's part of it. It's something that we should all experience because if we're living in this dark world for Christ, hey, there will be people that will come against us. And we have to remember that when that happens, we're actually blessed. And he continues on that. He gets a little more specific here in verse 11. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Sounds like Twitter. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. And sometimes that's the best you can do, isn't it? Sometimes. Because let's be real, it hurts when people do those things to us. Jesus isn't saying, oh, it's no big deal. He's saying, you can be blessed because remember, your reward is not about what happens here, it's about what happens in heaven. That's why in Zephaniah those people could have no fear of anything because they knew that their life wasn't about this world, it was about God. And Jesus is reiterating that and he's saying, look, if you do things my way, you're going to stand out. You're going to just by your very existence offend people who are going to come against you and they're going to revile you, they're going to falsely accuse you. All these Things are going to happen. And what you need to realize is that when that happens, that isn't a signal that you're doing something wrong and that God has abandoned you. It's a signal that you're blessed. We have to remember the. The martyrs of the faith, the apostles, the people who were tortured and killed, who lost everything for the faith. These are our heroes. They're blessed. This is antithetical to, like, North American, especially, like, evangelical Christianity. That's like, oh, no. It's about being prosperous. And if anything bad's happening to you, it's a sign that you did something wrong. Well, it depends on what they're talking about. But the reality is this. If the world's coming against you and people are attacking you, you don't need to figure out a new way to relate to people. You need to just remember that if you suffer, whatever you suffer for Christ's sake is a blessing and he will repay you beyond anything that you can possibly imagine. Remember what Peter said. What about those who've left lands and fathers and all that? Jesus says those people will be paid back in this life and the life to come. He didn't even just limit it to heaven. You'll get paid back in this life, even with those persecutions. The grace that God will give you in your life here will make it all worth it. But your reward is great in heaven. Are you trying to live a life for a great reward here? If you are, hey, the world's gonna tell you you gotta be strong, you gotta be smart. You gotta have all these things. But what St. Paul said is, look, that's not what God's doing. He's choosing the weak, the foolish, the ones who are overlooked by the world to display his power in. And that's where we need to be, my friends. So what do we take away from this? You know, this stuff you probably heard a million times, but it's back to the basics. If I was your coach today, we'd be doing double leg takedowns all day long in wrestling practice, you might say. But I got a big tournament. I already got that mastered. I need to learn how to do, like, this crazy other weird move. No, no, no, you don't. We need to get back to the basics. When you get that down, everything else will come into play. But if you try to do other stuff without these, hey, it's going to be difficult, you know, And I remember that in my faith when I was young, feeling this sense of, oh, well, yeah, I got this down, you know, I need to move on. And then life hits you in the face in one way or the other, and you realize, wow, I really stink. I thought that I was past this stuff, but, man, at the core, I'm still a selfish jerk. At the core, I still struggle with humility. I still struggle with meekness. This isn't a one and done thing, my friends. This is what it means to truly be blessed. And the more we operate in this, the more, as St. Paul says, we live in our calling. Consider your call, brethren. Consider your call. And remember, my friends, we don't want to boast in us. We boast in God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus. As it is written, let him who boasts boast of the Lord. Friends, let that be true for us. We got to get the basics right. And we got to remember to embrace our weakness, because that's what makes us strong. And when we do that, we find our refuge in God, not in this world. And that's probably the most basic thing that we have to remember. If we can get that part down, we stop living for the world, start living for God. Everything will fall into place. But it's a daily thing, isn't it? Like I said, it isn't a one and done. Did that in third grade, you know. No, it's a daily thing. We wake up every day. We die daily. This is what St. Paul said. We die daily. Every day. We wake up, we go, okay, today is yours. Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy. That's why I love the rosary so much, because we need those graces every day. We need those meditations every day. We need those truths every day so that we can live into this every single day. Thank you guys for doing that, for getting on this path, for trying, for being pure of heart, for saying, yeah, okay, I got to be honest. I got to be real. Here's where I'm struggling. Lord, give me your grace and remembering, friends, that this isn't about you becoming super Christian person by your own power. This is about emptying yourself and saying, when I'm weak, he is strong, right? I need his strength. I can't do it on my own, but with him, friends, all things are possible. And whatever comes our way in the middle of it, even the hard things that come as the result of the holy things, God's got a blessing for you in that. Thanks for watching, my friends. I look forward to being back here with you. Next week on unpacking the Mass. Take care. And God bless.
