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Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien expresses his gratitude for the enthusiastic witness of faith from the audience. He shares humorous anecdotes about public speaking. He explains the history and role of the Archdiocese of Military Services, responsible for the spiritual well-being of military personnel and their families. He mentions the shortage of Catholic chaplains and the need to reach young adults in the military. He discusses the importance of empowering military personnel to share their faith and the positive impact it can have. He emphasizes the noble vocation of serving in the military and the connection to Christ's message of service. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, Archbishop of the Military. Thanks, Gus. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. I am truly overwhelmed by this wonderful witness of faith that you are giving such enthusiastic evidence to this morning. I thank you for that witness. I will be a different man as I leave this town than when I came. Originally, I was supposed to speak last today, and that gave me some qualms, because you've been spoken to a lot all day, and you might be tired of listening, and I was afraid of losing some of you. And then I was kind of relieved when they said, no, you're up in the morning at 10.05, you'll be on. I said, fine, they'll be awake and so forth and responsive. And then I have to follow Jesse. Wow. You know, at the service academies, they run these cadets and midshipmen from six in the morning to midnight. They don't have a spare moment. And so when they get to class, the classes are usually 12, 15 young men and women, sometimes it catches up to them and not off. It's 15 demerits. They walk the court if they fall asleep. So they're told they're welcome to stand up if they're about to doze off and nothing will be done. Just stand and listen. So I give you permission, full permission, any one of you and all of you, to stand rather than fall asleep. You've heard the story of the priest has a very fine homily prepared. He gets up there and halfway through the homily, a fellow right over here in the third row starts to nod off and he falls asleep. And he makes some noise, he's snoring. The priest cuts his homily short, goes back, gets to the server. He goes, go down and tell that man to wake that man up. He said, Father, you put him to sleep, you wake him up. A couple of years ago, I was invited down to Houston, Texas for the installation of a new president of the University of St. Thomas. I was a cadet when I was at West Point. Bob Ivany retired as a major general. He's doing a fine job down there. And the guest speaker was President Bush I. President Bush I is very good to this college and always has been to the College of St. Thomas. He told the story, he said, I'm going to be very brief, but you can believe me. The last guy who said that didn't prove too honest. He said it was at a Yale reunion. And the main speaker said, I'm going to be very brief. And he said, I want to tell you about Yale. Y is for youth. And he went on for 20 minutes about youth. And A is for the alumni, the strong alumni. And he went 30 minutes. And finally, after two hours, he stops and he goes back. And the chaplain is going to say a prayer. He said, chaplain, I'm going to say a prayer. We all get home. He said, no, I'm going to say a prayer of Thanksgiving that we're not here in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And finally, a very brief story. You've been at these meetings where kind of there's a table up front and the board of directors. And this is one of these old age retirement villages. And everybody has a chance to speak. But you're limited to five minutes. And I understand I'm limited to 40 minutes. And the bottom is going to fall through this floor if I don't stop at that time. Well, they hold up a big red flag if someone passes the time. This elderly gentleman, very well respected, goes past his five minutes. And people get a little anxious. It's five, it's ten minutes. And they get frustrated. Half of them are asleep, who aren't getting angrier and angrier. And finally, they motion to the chairman, get up and gavel him down. The chairman takes the gavel and bangs it down, but it lands on the head of the treasurer of the organization. And the treasurer said, do it again, I can still hear him. But I will be brief. The Archdiocese of Military Services, you've heard a little bit about it. The entity started in 1917 when we had troops all over Europe. If you go to Lexington, Kentucky tomorrow, you are under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Lexington. Wherever you are, that's your bishop for that time you're there. And so we had kids in foreign lands answering to German bishops, Italian bishops, and all kinds of politics got in the way. And the Pope said, OK, I'm going to start a new diocese. I'm going to be the bishop of all the military of any country. And I'm going to appoint a vicar in each country, a bishop, who will have responsibility and jurisdiction for those in the military uniform of that country. And so he appointed the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Hayes, because all the troops were leaving right from New York into ships off to Hudson. And so from 1917 to 1985, the military vicariate was under the Archbishop of New York. Pope John Paul II changed all that, not just in the United States, but across the world, all over the world. He said, I'm going to start – these bishops can be bishops in their own right, and they'll be separated from the territorial bishop. So in 1985, we moved down to Washington, and we became the military ordinariate, Archdiocese of Military Services. We've been down there since. I'm the third archbishop. I've been there almost 10 years now. We're civilian. I'm a civilian, appointed by the Pope, as any other bishop is. My relationship to the government is to endorse priests for chaplaincy. We say to the Department of Defense, this priest will represent the Catholic Church. He's a priest in good standing. We have many other relationships, informal and so forth, but I'm not under the jurisdiction of the military, which I think gives us good leverage and fine freedom. Responsible for all the men and women in our armed forces, wherever they're serving, their families, 175 veterans' hospitals, any civilians working for our government overseas, it's huge, 1.5 million Catholics. We live and work out of Washington. Normally, we have three bishops, auxiliary bishops working with us. We were here last month to bury one of my closest friends and dearest friends, Bishop John Kaysing. So we're a bishop short right now, and today would have been his 71st birthday, Bishop Kaysing's 71st birthday. So please keep him in your prayers. We have about 25 lay people working in our chancery office. It's a very small operation. We're on the road more than half the year. Just travel the world to try to catch up with our priests and our good people. Through our chaplains, we meet our people. We don't assign priests. The chiefs of chaplains do that. Army, Navy, Air Force has their own chief of chaplains. But pastorally, spiritually, jurisdictionally, we're responsible for whatever goes on in the lives of our people as it relates to Christ and his church. We should have 800 priests. We are 325. Last year at this time, we had 16 Air Force installations with a Catholic chaplain in uniform that do not have one this year. And next year, there will be at least another 16 without a Catholic chaplain. We beg our bishops for priests, lend us a priest for three years or more. We beg our religious superiors for priests. But you know the story, how difficult it is for them to get priests. But we are an extension of every diocese in the country. We have about 250,000 to 300,000 young adults, 18 to 30, in the military who are Catholic. How do we reach them? I'm doing the most important thing I'll ever do in my life, Catholic-seeking Christ. Learn it from FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, where college kids go back to a campus in a team and evangelize their own through the Scriptures. And we're two weeks on the Scriptures on the Bible. And they're well-versed in how the Scriptures are born out of our church, out of the Catholic Church, from earliest days. The sacraments, how they tie in and so forth. I said, if they can be so successful as they are at the Naval Academy and at the Air Force Academy, why can't we do this within the military ranks themselves and not bring people in from outside, but get our troops evangelized so that they can share their faith? Give them some training. Let them go out. It's about a $4 million project over five years. We're getting there. It's slow because of deployments and so forth. But we must do something to empower our young people to know what their faith is, to know who Jesus Christ is in their lives, and the great gift they have to spread Christ. And those who are stepping forward, their lives are changed. We had last year about five Marines come in for a three-day session in Washington from Quantico. How did they get there? Sergeant said, Catholics, raise your hand. Ken, raise your hand. You five, you're going up to Washington. The bus is right outside. They didn't know what they were doing until they got there. But they went back to Quantico, and the priest had them speak the next Sunday after communion, and they got standing ovations, standing ovations. And where they are now, I don't know, but they're probably still Marines somewhere out there sharing their faith and using the materials we've given them to share that faith. So please pray that we become more of a presence, that we take advantage of this great potential for evangelization that we have in our ranks, in our military. It's a culture of generosity that we should be capitalizing on, that we should be benefiting from. I try to convince our people in uniform that theirs is not just a profession as fine and historic and good as that is. It's a noble vocation to put on that uniform. When they put that uniform on, they enter the service, service of their country, of their neighbor. Well, how did Christ define himself? I have come to serve and not be served. That's a very Christian thing, to come to serve your neighbor in that, to give your life to service. Some time ago before General Jones, the Marine commandant, went over to Europe to take charge of NATO, he invited me to his dining room for lunch and told the story. He said, every six weeks or so, I go down to Quantico for the swearing in of our new Marines. He said, I give them a pep talk, but I said, why don't I get someone who served in the Marines to come back and tell them what the Marines have meant to him? And so he did. He got a millionaire from New York, not Christian. And he came down and he told these assembled Marines and their families what the Marine Corps meant to him. He said, I want to tell you the three most important words I have ever learned in my life. And I learned them in the Marines. Then he went on and gave a fine talk and he sat down. What are those three most important words? So he was playing with the audience. He came back and he said, these are the words. He said, they made me a fine Marine. I learned the Marines. Because of those words, I think I'm a pretty good husband and father. I have 150 employees. I think they know my name and I know their name one by one. He said, the three most important words are officers eat last. Officers eat last. The only reason you're being commissioned today is to serve those people who are under your command. That's the only reason. And if you don't do that, you're doing a disservice to them and to the oath that you're taking today. Officers eat last. That's a gospel message. It's a gospel message. Come to serve and not be served. A very Christian thing. Greater love than this no one has than to give his life for his friend, Christ said. Willing to give your lives for total strangers. I've been in Iraq twice. One time invited by the Secretary of Defense with nine others. None of them were clerics. They were all newspaper reporters and editorialists and so forth. And we stayed in Kuwait. They took a C-130 into Baghdad because the airport was closed at the time. And it was about an hour and a half flight in and back. We're tired at the end of the day. Due to board our C-130 to go back to Kuwait at 730 and they said there's going to be a delay. An HR was coming on board. An HR is a human remains. And some kid in the 82nd, I served in the 82nd, was shot up that day and they're bringing the body back. He should have seen the liturgy, the reverence that his comrades gave him, Army and Air Force. It was a beautiful pageant as they accompanied that fallen hero. They brought the body onto the back of the plane, the body bag. These nine, I didn't know any of their religions, but all of a sudden they got very religious. And they said, Father, would you say a prayer? And I did. And all the way back I accompanied the body with rosaries. And when I got back I called Archbishop Gonzalez in San Juan. I said just let the family know that Francisco had a bishop praying over his body as he was being judged. One of the wonderful, wonderful signs as they were about to close the back ramp, one of the crewmen from the Air Force noticed that there was not a flag on the body bag. He ripped the Velcro American flag off his arm. He placed it on the bag and he stepped back and he did a salute that brought tears to everyone's eyes. Greater love than this no one has than to give his life for his friends. We're total strangers. We have our young kids over there and willingly doing it. And coming back and finding out that the headlines aren't even mentioning the good things that happened, the sacrifices they're doing, the friends that they're making over there. I'm not taking a side, but I'm afraid some of our publicists do take sides and our kids are not getting the credit they deserve in specifics. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers. Peace I leave with you. Why would they be doing what they're doing except for the cause of peace? Willing to give their lives in service of their neighbor for the cause of peace. What higher calling could there be? How many eyes this past century have shed streams of tears? The Yanks are coming. The Americans are coming. We're going to be free. We're going to be able to practice our faith and speak and gather as communities without tyranny oppressing us. This is what I try to convince our people. There's no conflict in what you're doing as a soldier, as a Marine, as an Airman, and your faith. Well, what about those bombs we have to, or the bullets that we have to shoot? Sometimes we have to take other lives. I say, yeah. Augustine realized that in the fifth century. When he saw the vandals coming down over the mountains and burning and looting everything in sight, he realized that the city of God and the city of man and the twain have not met yet. And as long as there's still a city of man and imperfection, we must sometimes exercise benevolent severity, is what he called it, tough love. And he developed the theory of the just war. And you know it, 2309 in your Catholic catechism, if you've got one, and if you don't have a Catholic catechism, you should, just war. And all the provisions are stipulated there. And the last part of that chapter, that paragraph 2309 says, after all is said and done, who decides whether a war is just or not? The evaluation of all conditions, the catechism says, for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudent judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good. That's our elected officials. What's the church's role? The church's role is to say, these are the principles. It can be very complicated. They can have differences. Prudent decisions, prudent opinions, prudent judgments have to be made, and sometimes we come down on different sides. So the church's role is to get out there. These are the principles. Now it's your role as laymen and laywomen to make the decisions that will be best for the common good. Tell the story of the Good Samaritan. We all know it. A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and on the way he saw a man lying on the side of the road, half dead. Two passed by, very noble men in their community. The third was a stranger and even an enemy of the Jewish people. He was the one that stopped him, put him on a mountain, poured oil on his wounds, and brought him to the inn. Whatever it is, I'll take care of it on the way back. My question is, what would have happened 20 minutes before if that Good Samaritan came by and saw the man being pummeled half to death? Did he have a right to step back and say, Well, I'll become a Good Samaritan about 20 minutes when that fight is over? Or did he have an obligation, an obligation to step in and do whatever had to be done and no more to put an end to that unjust aggression? This is what our military is for. And our military, I think, is as conscious of that, the ideals and values of the leadership in our military would put most of any other organization to shame. Bad things happen sometimes. I was in Walter Reed on Ash Wednesday when this whole thing was breaking out about Building 18 and the mistreatment. But the 200 people who were at mass that day, I saw them in action serving the wounded. And some of the scenes you'll never forget once you see them. I try to get there as often as I can to there in Bethesda. What they do for these people. And so I tried to tell them how valuable it was. I was standing. Millions of Americans would love to be standing. And there were some of the wounded right there at mass and I thanked them for the sacrifices they make every day for our country. The culture of generosity is what I call it. One chaplain told me the story of when he was in the desert in the first Gulf War with the Marines, Navy chaplain, Navy services, the Marines and Navy as well as Coast Guard. He said six Marines came up to him. It was this time of year. He said, we're in the field for two weeks. MREs, this awful rotten food, but they say it's getting better. But, you know, these things in packets, you've had them. Dirty. Hadn't had a shower. There's no hot water. Tired. Six Marines came up to the priest and said, Father, let me ask you a question here. What can we do for Lent? What? Say that again. What can we do for Lent? This is the spirit of our people. The more you sacrifice, as Christ wants you to sacrifice, the more you sacrifice in the name of Christ. And I tell our kids, this is a Christian vocation. Take Christ with you. Be sure you don't mistreat anyone. Be sure you're conscious of the dignity of every human being and forces only to be used, as one of our generals told us over there. He said, my kids go out in the field every day with a paintbrush in one hand and a weapon in the other. Figuratively. The paintbrush is to build up the infrastructure of this community. The weapon is to defend themselves and anyone else who might be under attack or threat. It's a great lesson. One other priest told this story. I'll have to read it. It's rather moving. He said it was during the Gulf War in northern Saudi Arabia, about 20 kilometers from the Iraqi border. My driver and I were returning to our compound after conducting worship services for Iraqi Christian soldiers who were detained in enemy prison war camps. And as usual, the narrow two-lane tap line road was humming with heavy military traffic. Not having had a shower or a shave for several days, I was thinking of how miserable I was and how I very much wanted to be out of the desert and on a plane going home. Just ahead of us, a bus packed with Egyptian soldiers blew a tire, slid sideways, and crashed into a truck convoy that was moving American troops north to Iraq. When we arrived at the point of impact, there were bodies splattered everywhere. People were screaming, vehicles were burning, and a black cloud of diesel oil covered the area. It was like a scene right out of hell. I went on automatic pilot and began praying the appropriate Muslim prayers over the dead and dying Egyptians. While crawling from one Muslim casualty to another, I came across an American soldier lying on the sand, partially covered by a brown woolen blanket. The soldier's head was smashed, and there was a rosary wrapped around the soldier's neck. And the soldier's right hand was clutching a crucifix. I listened to the soldier's military jacket, dug out the bloodstained name tag, and read that the soldier's name was Dorothy and was a Roman Catholic. Wrapping my hands over her clenched fist, I bent down and whispered, Dorothy, if you can hear me, squeeze the crucifix you're holding. I felt a slight throb. If you're sorry for your sins, squeeze your crucifix again. Another slight throb. Holding her hand as her life was slipping away, I repeated the words I've said so many times before. May God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins. Later, a medic pronounced her dead. After her body was removed, I eventually found my way back to my sleeping bag, crawled in, zipped up, and prayed that sleep would come quickly. This happened over 15 years ago. That experience on Tap Line Road is probably the most profound sense I've ever had of serving as a priest in the person of Christ. Not only to the Christian soldier, but to all of the soldiers who were injured or killed on Tap Line Road. No one said or did anything that helped me experience this reality. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. And in the midst of this tragedy, I felt a profound sense of serving as priest in the presence of God. These chaplains are experiencing this these days every day. And they want to go back. And they're going back. Most of them are there two out of three years now because of the shortage of priests. They're on tremendous call. And every commander wants a priest. The reputation of the priest chaplains, any of you who've served in the military know. When I was in the military, I'd have Jewish kids come up to me. They'd say, my father told me if there wasn't a rabbi around to find a Catholic priest. They're the ones who identify with you and you with them. It's a great tradition they've given us. Two weeks ago, I was in St. Paul. We have one chaplain who has been injured, seriously injured, Father Tim Vatnish. And on his anniversary of priesthood, May 29th, year 2004, coming back on Pentecost Eve, having said masses, he was hit by an IED. I've seen him. I saw him at Walter Reed over and over again. He only has part of his brain. So we visited him. He was all wound up. And it's been almost three years now. I identified myself because I knew him pretty well. I said, Tim, this is Archbishop O'Brien. I'm going out to the Pacific, and I was the next day, for a retreat for about 30 army chaplains, priests. I said, I'm going back to see some of your buddies, some of our priests. And I know they're going to want to know how you are. Can I tell them that you will be praying for them? And he just a little nod. He's conscious of what he's suffering. He's conscious of the sacrifices he's making. And he's conscious of the role that Christ wants him to play. Christ did not save the world through his homilies, through his sermons, through his miracles. He saved the world when he was helpless on the cross, totally helpless. That's a great message to give to anyone who is homebound, anyone who feels that they're not contributing anything. Christ within, Christ is praying. The Holy Spirit, with groans, is offering their prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus. And so our chaplains, I think, are facing this every day, as Father Tim Backish is doing. And he wrote just a week before he got in that accident. He wrote to his sister, The safest place for me is to be in the midst of God's will. And if that's in the line of fire, that's where I will be. Met a lieutenant colonel last week. We had a retreat for ROTC cadets and Knights of Columbus, young Knights of Columbus, toward vocations. We hope to get a lot of vocations out of the military. And Lieutenant Colonel there said he was going to Afghanistan, leaving there, going to the West Coast to visit his family. He said, My wife and I figured out that since 2003, we have spent eight months together, total. I spent eight months with her and my children. No complaints, no negatives. He was willing to do it. Once again, the more you give, the more you want to give. The more you give in the name of Christ, the more you will find that life has a meaning. It's been said that we as a church, I as a priest, as a bishop, spend my life trying to convince people that suffering and death can be good. Suffering and death can be good. They're inevitable, but only through the cross, only through Christ on the cross. Does this life have any meaning? Will death have any meaning? And I think our military realizes that. The Christians in the military and certainly Catholics in the military, how strong they are. But they have needs. They have needs. And I would ask you to consider those needs in your own communities. I go to these installations. I was up at Camp Drum back in the spring. There were no soldiers there. They're all families. Had consummations. Ask the kids, How many have fathers and mothers? Usually the fathers overseas, three-quarters of them. Father wasn't there for the consummation. Just extended another three months without warning. Complaints? No. Tears? No. Anger? Not a bit. Not a bit. But they're hurting. Our military families are hurting. Up at Fort Drum, at Fort Bragg, at Fort Pendleton, they have a structure on that military installation. They're sure they can get counseling. They bring people together, mothers, to talk about their needs and the kids and what can they do and so forth. There's great resources. There's great possibilities there. But in many of your communities where you've had reservists called up and you've had the National Guard called up, these families are stranded very often. What's your parish doing about it? When you walk into the vestibule of your church, do you see a poster with the pictures of those who are overseas or those who are in uniform wherever they're serving with their names and a petition to pray for them? What about the kids who are in that community, who are going to school, who might be acting out and acting up? Why? Because they haven't seen their father for the last year and a half. And they know as soon as he comes home, he's going to be looking to be deployed again. What are our communities doing for our spouses who are alone and looking for some support? So we have a lot to do as a Catholic community. Are we praying? Is the parish as a community praying? Are we helping those who are being affected so radically by the sacrifices that are being made? Whenever I go to an installation, especially overseas, I see cards and letters from 6th graders and 2nd graders. We love you, Army man. You're doing so much good for us. Thank you. We pray for you every day. Are our schools doing that? Are our young CCD students doing that? That's something we can do. Aftercare. As I said, I was with the troops at Walter Reed. They get tremendous attention there, despite this one incident. But what happens when they go home? They blend in. After a while, they're just another citizen. Okay, you did your job. What have you done for me lately? What are we doing in our local communities to support those who are scarred, and not necessarily physically, who are scarred in here because of what they've been through, because of what they've seen, who have guilt for wondering if they did the right thing at that spur of the moment. Did they do the right thing? They meant well, but was it what they should have done? These are things that people wrestle with. And we shouldn't just leave and say, well, there's a VA about 10 miles down there. VA does great work too, but they're overburdened. They're overchallenged. And so all of us, I think, have so much that we can do for our military in prayer, in actual grassroots support for our families, and especially those who are returning home and needing that ongoing sign of appreciation and support and giving them whatever resources they have to come back into the community. I could say much more. We cover the world, the other bishops and I. Last year, I had the Pacific for two months, confirmations and so forth. Distances in the Pacific are amazing. Korea, Okinawa, mainland Japan, Guam, Hawaii, not bad. I rarely admit that. I always say I was in the Pacific. It makes it sound much more. Guam, Hawaii, Alaska. My first stop, though, was Singapore. And we don't do much down in Singapore. We have about 580 personnel, maybe 30 or 40 Catholic families. And so we went down, and it was Holy Week. And we had the Easter vigil in a small chapel. But you know what happens at the Easter vigil? We bless the new fire. Christ is our light. Christ is our light, the light of the world. It's the baptism that we're all trying to renew, and we're bringing new members into the church through baptism. That's what Lent is all about, to renew our baptism. And I see in your program, you will renew your baptismal vows, and you will do it again at the Easter vigil and on Easter Sunday. And so we had a beautiful ceremony. We had this silver basin over here filled with the water, and that's what we blessed. Very impressed. Next day, we had First Communion. I don't care what you say. I spent many years in Rome, in St. Peter's. I was at St. Patrick's Cathedral for 10 years in residence and as an associate. I've seen the great ceremonies. Nothing touches a First Communion to see these kids coming out. It's just something else. Well, 12 little 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds, they're sitting right in the front row, 6 and 6. And I decided I wanted to ask them a question that I ask our Confirmation kids, but I never expect an answer from them, so it's rhetorical. Confirmation kids are so self-conscious, they don't even know their own names when they're sitting there. You'd think they're pagans. And it's been drummed into them, and they've rehearsed, but forget about it. Forget about it. So I don't bother asking Confirmation kids questions and expecting a rational answer. And I tell them that before the ceremony. I said, Relax, I'm not going to ask you questions. And, boy, does their expression change. But these 12 little 8-year-olds, they were really fired up. You know how loose they are. They're talking and they're relating and whatnot. I said, I'm going to ask them that question. And what was the question? Why did your parents have you baptized as infants? We hear that from our evangelical friends all the time, especially in the military. We are losing Catholics in the military left and right because of the slots that we don't fill. We're 25% Catholic, 7% of the chaplaincy is Catholic. And those 18% are filled by Protestant chaplains, many of them very aggressive evangelical chaplains. And we're losing a lot of them, especially a lot of our Hispanics. And so I asked these kids, I said, Why did your parents have you baptized? Why didn't they wait until you were older so you could make your own decision? Do you want to be Christian? Do you want to be Catholic Christian? And one kid right in the corner, one boy shot up his hand. I said, Boy, this is great. I made the right move. He said, I was baptized as a baby because if I got much bigger, I wouldn't be able to fit into that silver thing up there. I lost it. I lost the parents. They were mortified. The kids thought it was a great faith. They never thought of that before, but he did. I was going to cut it off then. A little girl over here raised her hand. I said, Uh-oh, this is going to be tough. Steal yourself. She said, I was baptized as a baby because Jesus wanted to be with me from the very beginning. Wow. Jesus wanted to be with me from the very beginning. Jesus has wanted to be with you and has been with you, each of you, from the very beginning. Pope John Paul II said the most important day of his life was not when he was elected pope, not when he's consecrated a bishop or ordained a priest. It was the day of his baptism because Jesus was within. Jesus' Spirit was guiding him even though he was unaware of it, even though he was sleeping, even though he was two years old. The Holy Spirit was with him, giving him the grace at every moment to take that right step, to make that right sacrifice, to identify with Christ in everything he's doing because Jesus is with each of you from the very beginning. That's why you're here, to bring Jesus alive. Too often the presence of Christ, as we know, is just dissipated. It's just watered down by all the things we've just heard and by so much more. We know it. But Jesus is still with you, never leaves you. Bring him alive this day. Help bring him alive in the lives of others and see him in the life of everyone in your family. Go home with greater respect for that wife, for those kids, for those neighbors who might be difficult at times. Show the fact of your faith. Take pride and thanksgiving in the fact that Jesus is with you and pray that what we do for our military will have that effect, that they'll be more conscious of the gift of grace, the presence of God in their lives, and the Holy Spirit and Christ in their lives. They will be more alert and alive and responsive to Christ in the very difficult work that they are doing in the vocation that is ours and theirs. Thank you and God bless all of you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Father. Thank you. Thank you, Archbishop, for that inspiring message. And Bobby, again, will lead us in music and singing. As Archbishop said, Jesus is in each and every one of us, is with us. And one of the things, one of the great gifts that is given to us is the gift of the psalms to help us to vocalize and recognize God's presence in our lives, especially Psalm 91. And I invite you as we sing this beautiful setting of Psalm 91, it's number 23 in your books, number 23, that we offer this as a prayer for all of our troops, for God's recognition of God being with them to lift them up, to protect them on eagle's wings.
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