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Dr. Marcelino D'Ambrosio is a senior fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He is a Catholic writer, speaker, retreat leader, and teacher. He has written a popular book called "Exploring the Catholic Church" and his teachings are distributed internationally. He often appears on EWTN and Catholic Answers Live. He has a wealth of knowledge in Catholic tradition and scripture interpretation. He shares a funny story about his Italian and Irish background and talks about the importance of being Catholic and what it means to be a Catholic man. He discusses the changes in society and culture over the years. Dr. Marcelino D'Ambrosio is currently a senior fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. He left the world of entertainment to obtain his doctorate in historical theology from the Catholic University of America. He has become a modern-day Catholic writer, speaker, retreat leader, pastoral minister, and an experienced teacher on all levels. Dr. D'Ambrosio has served as assistant professor of theology at the Institute of Religious and Pastoral Studies at the University of Dallas. There he taught courses in theology as well as evangelization, ecumenism, liturgy, and Vatican II. Marcelino brings to his speaking a wealth of pastoral experience and an in-depth knowledge of Catholic tradition and interpretation of scriptures. The aptitude that Marcelino has gained in these areas of our faith has led him to make profound contributions to Catholics in today's society. Audio and visual recordings of his popular teaching are internationally distributed. He often appears on the international EWTN and is regularly heard on the nationally syndicated radio show, Catholic Answers Live. His popular book, Exploring the Catholic Church, has been used in thousands of parishes throughout the English-speaking world. The founder of Crossroads Productions, which emphasizes Catholic renewal and evangelization, his writings have appeared in Communio, The Tablet, Catholic Digest, Sunday Visitor, and the syndicated column, Faith Alive. Dr. D'Ambrosio and his wife Susan, along with their five children, live outside San Antonio, Texas. Gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Marcelino D'Ambrosio. Thank you. Good morning. Great being with you. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. He did the short version of my name, my full name is Marcelino Giovanni D'Ambrosio. And I was delighted to hear Steve's talk because at the end he confirmed a fundamental suspicion of mine. As an Italian, I always thought that heaven and hell had something to do with food. Now I have to tell you, despite the fact that my name is Marcelino Giovanni D'Ambrosio, my mother's name was Patti Carey. Do you guys see my big fat Greek wedding? Okay. Well, my parents' wedding was kind of like that, it was just the opposite. There was this little white girl, this little Irish girl with blue eyes and blonde hair and freckles marrying into this crazy Italian family of people with accents and parties with flamingos and lanterns on the front lawn and all that stuff, right? Now the thing that was different is since both Italians and Irish are Catholic, she didn't need to be baptized sacramentally before the marriage. She was baptized after the marriage in spaghetti sauce. She was immersed in Italian culture. And she even got to the point that if you tie her hands behind her back, she can't communicate. We call her a born-again Italian. Now, I'm sharing this with you because, you know, a couple of reasons. One is it is a wonderful thing to be Catholic, Irish, and Italian because in this politically correct world, that gives me license to tell Italian Catholic and Irish jokes and get away with it. So in honor of Declan, our conference chair, I want to tell you a little story of fellowship, a little Irish story about fellowship. The boys went into the bar, like always, the pub after work one day in Dublin, and a new guy walks in. They hadn't seen him before. And he sits down, very strange behavior. He orders three pints of beer. And they asked him if he wanted, you know, if he wants it in a sequence, he said, no, no, I want them all now. So they line them up. Three pints of beer. So the bartender there, all the boys are talking, it's kind of strange behavior, so the bartender comes over and says, tell me now, don't you think it'd be a little smarter, you know, to have them one at a time, you know, head would stay better and be fresher. And he says, no, no, no, you see, this is very important. I'm new here, I just came from Galway, and every day after work in Galway, me and me, two brothers, we used to get together. We were very close, we were, and we still are, but, you know, we decided Galway was very poor. We needed to move and find opportunity for our families. So me brother Sean, he went to Australia, me brother Pat, he went to the States, and I came here to the big city in Dublin. But we made a pledge, a vow, in honor of the fellowship and the brotherhood we share. After work, we'd still to get together in spirit, and we drink three beers in honor of our fellowship. And the bartender says, oh, it's touching, it touched me heart, you know, and everybody knew when he came in that this was going to be the case. So week after week, month after month, he'd come in, and everyone would know, he'd order the three beers and drink them all before he went home. And one day, he comes in, and he orders only two beers, and all the guys notice, and they start talking. And pretty soon, the bartender comes over, and he gives a bunch of money to Mike. And Mike says, what's this all about? What are you giving me the money for? And the bartender says, oh, you see, me and the boys, we took up a little collection. We noticed you're only drinking two beers. I mean, which one was it? Which one passed, Sean or Pat? And Mike looked incredulous, and then he looked at him and says, oh, no, you misunderstand. You see, it's Lent now, me, myself, I've given up beer for Lent. You know, sometimes male Catholicism has been a little bit on the shallow side, you know, not very profound. And I want to just share my background with you, because it gets down to what we're talking about today. When we go to the conference, answer the call. The call to what? What are we called to? What does it mean to be Catholic and to be a Catholic man? That's an important thing to get clear on. Now, I grew up, I was born in the 50s, and I'm coming from, you know, Italian-Irish background. Now, the Irishmen were a little bit better than the Italianmen. At least they went to church. But quite frankly, you know, we think about the problems in our church today, and we sometimes were tempted to glamorize the old days before, you know, Vatican II. But I'll just tell you, in those old days, it wasn't just here in the United States, but for centuries, for centuries in the Mediterranean world anyway, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and then exported here to Latin America. The culture of Catholicism really meant that woman was the leader in the home. Religion was a woman's thing. Guys didn't go to church. They might have as kids. But once they get older, my father and all the guys in the family, my father was better than most. His dad didn't go to church. He had no model for faith and living out the faith. Okay, Grandpa wore a crucifix. We had crucifixes in every bedroom. We had Raphael's Madonna in the chair over the living room sofa. But religion seemed to, faith seemed to play virtually no part in the life of Grandpa, of the uncles, Uncle Joe, Cousin Vinny. I have two Cousin Vinny's. Same one? Okay, none of these guys went to church. You know when they went to church? We used to call the Italian guys A and P Catholics. I don't know if you remember the A and P supermarket chain, if they had it in your part of the world ever. But that was a chain. We called them A and P Catholics. They only come to church when they were going to get something, ashes and palms. That's when the Italian guys came to church. Never miss us Wednesday. I don't know why, but the palms, they used to braid stuff. But they dropped the women off, otherwise, outside of church and hang out and smoke cigarettes or something. That's the way, you know, really Mediterranean males operated in Catholicism, okay? Back in the 1950s, I just want you to think about the world that we lived in. The world that we lived in in 1950, those of you who were alive then. We had the first televangelists, a Catholic bishop, Fulton Sheen, primetime TV. Not a little cable channel or something, primetime network TV. They only had three channels back then, right? And here he is making one of the most famous comedians in the history of the United States, Milton Berle, quake in his shoes. He beat him in the ratings. Primetime TV, Catholic bishop. Now how about the rest of TV, which was a new thing? Think about the sitcom that was on, it was so popular way back when. I Love Lucy. Remember I Love Lucy, okay? I came from a swinging family, a showbiz family. My father was a jazz piano player. My mother was a dancer. My godmother was the lead singer at the Copa Cabana until she was discovered by this guy who brought her on the road with his band. His name was Dizzy Arnaz. She was the lead singer for Dizzy Arnaz's band until he began the TV series. Remember that TV series? See any bedroom scenes in that TV series? You did. You did see bedroom scenes. What kind of beds did they have? They had twin beds. The bed was made and they never so much as sat on the bed. Now there was a law, a code of conduct in Hollywood in the making of movies and TV shows that was in place in the 50s. Nothing more than a kiss. You see the old war movies, they did as best they could to get away with as much kissing as they could, you know, but that was about as much they could do. God's Name in Vain, that was a no-no. Okay, they had a code of conduct in the 1950s. The Knights of Columbus in the 1950s added something to the Pledge of Allegiance. One nation under God was added in the 1950s through the influence of the Knights of Columbus. Now switch to the 60s. This is when I was growing up. I wanted to follow in my mom and dad's footsteps. Did I believe that it was important to go to church? Absolutely. I would never miss mass on Sunday. My dad started a tradition of men going to mass in my family because he had good influence of males. He went to a Catholic high school and they were the brothers there. And the brothers beat it into his head, his thick skull, that it was important. And his football coach beat it into his head that it was important to go to church. So at least I had that as a model for my dad. I would never miss church, neither would my father. He was out playing in nightclubs. I was playing in nightclubs by the time I was 13 years old, touring with one of the biggest club bands in southern New England by the time I was 16. I was out sometimes until 3 in the morning on Saturday night. I thought they called it the holy sacrifice of mass because it was such a sacrifice to get my butt out of bed in the morning. But I'd never miss it. Why? Because the mass was the source and summit of my life? No. Why did I not miss mass on Sunday? Simple. I didn't want to go to hell. Was I excited about heaven? Now here I am, 16-year-old, playing in a rock band. I want adventure, action. How is heaven often described? When's the last time you heard a really exciting sermon about heaven? How is heaven often described? Eternal rest. What teenager you know is interested in eternal rest? The only rest a teenager is interested in is Saturday morning when there's chores to be done. That's about it. Okay. So there's action and excitement. And for me, religion was the last thing. It was not exciting. It was not an adventure. It was really pray, pay, and obey. It was really kind of like a retirement fund. You had to take some money out of your circulation right now and put it away so that later on you'd have something. Right? It was like fire insurance. I didn't want to go to hell. I mean, roasting over an open fire for all eternity did not appeal to me. Okay? So that's why I went to Mass on Sunday. And what was Catholicism about for me, and for my dad, and for the few guys that, friends of mine that went to church back in the mid-60s, well, it was really about, you know, I'm going to try to keep the Ten Commandments. You know, there's a two-track system in Catholicism. At least that's what I thought, that's what my dad thought, that's what everyone thought. There's a priest and the nuns, and they're the A-team, and we lay people. We pray, pay, and obey. You know, our job is to go to Mass on Sunday, try to keep the laws of the church, right? And we're supposed to try to keep out of mortal sin, which is really hard, especially if you want to have a little fun. Okay? God seemed to me like a grumpy old man. You know, everything was, thou shalt not, thou shalt not this, thou shalt not that. But He is the boss, so you've got to listen to Him. Right? But, you know, you skirt the edges a little bit because you want to have a life, and you fall over the edge. And thank God you're Catholic because it's confession. So you go to confession, wipe the slate clean, and you go out and you kind of skirt the edges a little bit, and you fall off, and you come back and you go to confession. And this is the rhythm of Catholic life. And you kind of hope that when the musical chairs stop and your life is over, it's kind of close to your last confession. That way you have less time in purgatory. This is the way we lived, okay? We believed in God, but He didn't make a whole lot of difference in our life. My dad never, ever talked about the Lord. He never prayed. My dad was a World War II Army vet, you know, he was a macho guy. And religion was private. My mother told me that he wouldn't even, oops, I'm having a little trouble with my ear here. My mom told me that he wouldn't pray with her. When they got married, she was shocked. He wouldn't pray with her because that's private, that's personal. Alright? Now, we never said grace, never said the rosary. Who did the religious education? The good sisters. We still had them then. We had the good sisters in the school, in CCD. And so, that was supposed to take care of my religious education. What was dad's role? It was to provide for the family, financially. That was dad's role, okay? Now, that was 19, let's say 1962, 1963, 1964. Now, that could work, at least to keep people out of serious sin, keep kids out of serious sin, keep them, you know, pretty much kind of on the straight and narrow. You know? Live in a pretty decent life. Because that's what it meant to be a good person, was to be kind of decent. That was the call. But something happened. First of all, a very prophetic thing happened. A man was elected Pope. He took the name John XXIII. Fascinating man. Funny man. Okay? A little story. You know, John XXIII was not the best looking guy in the world. He's pretty heavy. A lot of pasta, right here. Big ears, big nose. And you know, when you're elected Pope, there's three sizes of clothing. To know who's going to be elected Pope, they've got small, medium, and large. Well, they vested him, and they're going to bring him out to present him to the world. And the large didn't quite fit, okay? So he looks in the mirror at himself, and his secretary heard this and recorded this. He mutters under his breath, my God, these Popes are going to be a disaster on television. But John XXIII was elected to be a transition candidate that wouldn't rock the vote. Okay? But the Cardinals made a little boo-boo. They forgot that he was a saint. And saints are open to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit always rocks the vote. So the Holy Spirit told him to call a council, and he called the Second Vatican Council. Now, I want to tell you something. How many of you have heard that the Second Vatican Council is to blame for all the chaos and the fallout in the church? Anyone ever hear that one? People accused the Vatican Council of that? Right. Not so. I'll prove it to you. It's true. Towards the end of the 60s, early 70s, seminaries that were full became empty. Nuns and priests started doing crazy things. Right? A lot of crazy stuff happened. But you know that had nothing to do with the council. In fact, the council was a prophetic insight. To call that council was a prophetic insight. Pope John XXIII, he saw a storm coming. And that storm was a cultural revolution that went way beyond the Catholic community. 1968. Student strikes all over. Riots in Paris. Woodstock happens. Women burning bras. The fallout was all throughout Western society a rejection of tradition and of authority. The Protestant churches began to empty. The traditional churches to this day, there are more Muslims in the United States right now than Episcopalians, the church of George Washington. That church has undergone a tremendous, massive exodus as well as the Methodists and all the traditional churches in this country. Now, John XXIII saw something. Our foundations were weak. The kind of weak Catholicism with weak men, that's something that can stand as long as society supports Catholic faith and morals. Okay? Remember that law that I talked about, unwritten law in Hollywood? That was jettisoned in the late 60s. And what do we see now coming out, spewing out of television? We see bedroom scenes that are explicit in the middle of the evening on primetime TV. As soon as people have feelings for each other, they're on the sack together. And that's the norm. That's being shown and modeled as the norm in human relationships. We see, that's mild compared to what's on the news recently. Two women, lesbian partners, both pregnant with each other's babies. Artificial insemination. I mean, it's crazy what's going on in the media today compared to where we were in 1950. It's a hostile society and that shift happened in the late 60s, early 70s. Okay? And the Holy Father saw there is a storm coming and we need to shore up our foundations. We need to figure out what the call really is and start equipping people to answer that call. And what the Second Vatican Council said was, that call is a call to holiness. It's a universal call to holiness. It's not a call to nominal Catholicism. That's not going to work anymore. That's not going to stand. A nominal Catholicism in a very short time will be no Catholicism at all. It can't be mediocre. It's got to be hot, it's got to be strong. And so, what is holiness anyway? This is what the Council taught. That every single person, regardless of state of life, single, married, religious, regardless of profession and background, everybody is called to the heights of holiness. But what is the heights of holiness? Interesting. There are three things that Paul gives us in his letters that the Church teaches us is the essence of holiness. They're called virtues, theological virtues they're called. Faith. And faith is not just intellectual belief that God exists, that Jesus is Lord. It's a dynamic giving of yourself, entrusting yourself, plunging into God. That's what biblical faith is all about. Hope. Well, it's not just hoping I'll go to heaven someday. It's a desire, it's a burning desire to be with God, to be united with God in heaven. It's a vision, an eternal perspective that colors everything in your life. And then finally, love. Love is not like, it's not romantic love that's feelings oriented. It's a decision. And it's a decision to give yourself away. Not to give, but to give of yourself. To give of yourself to another. First of all, to accept God's gift of himself and let his love, which is expressed in the cross, in Jesus laying his life down and draining the last drop of his blood for us. That kind of love is supernatural. That's why it's called theological virtue. You can't have it unless God has given it and it's flowing out from him. Now these three things are called virtues. You know what the word virtue means? It's a word for man in Latin. For manly. For power. For strength. Holiness is being powerful with God's power. Faith, hope and love are spiritual muscles. They're supernatural muscles. And they're supported by four other muscles. Four other virtues. Four other powers that are natural virtues. Anybody without revelation can recognize these things are necessary for a good human being, a strong human being. This is the character of leadership. These four are enumerated in the Bible, but they were known even before revelation by the Greek philosophers. Prudence. Prudence is the power to be able to make decisions, practical decisions, in sometimes complicated circumstances. To take the best course of action. The right course of action. That's prudence. Justice. Justice is giving the passion, the desire, to give everyone his or her due. To give God his due. To give our country its due. To be due right by our kids, our wives, our brothers, our sisters, our business associates. Okay? It's the power to deny taking unfair advantage of others. Deny the impulse to look after ourselves, look after number one, make sure everyone else is taken care of. Paying our debts. Being responsible. Very manly, powerful virtue. And there are two other cardinal virtues. There's temperance. Temperance is not carination. Remember carination? Crank all the liquor bottles. It's not have no fun, have no pleasure. That's not temperance. Temperance is bringing everything into balance. Keeping things in balance. America is not typically noted for its balance, is it? Someone once told me, I have a business in the wellness and nutritional industry, and I heard this nutritious one say that an American idea of a balanced diet is an ice cream cone in each hand. But balance, temperance really means the power to hold all things in the right proportion. Work, play, sleep, food. All these things to do them in the right proportion so it brings life and strength instead of being destructive. Okay? And then finally is fortitude. Fortitude is courage. Fear keeps us from so many things. Keeps us from getting the best for our family. Keeps us from doing what God wants us to do. It keeps us from fighting the good fight. Fear intimidates us into inaction. Sometimes we run. Sometimes we stand still and freeze. Okay? Fortitude is the power to overcome fear and never allow fear to keep us from doing what is right. It allows us to endure hardship. It also causes us to reach out and attack evil. That's fortitude. Now these virtues, these seven powers, this is what holiness is about. This is what leadership is about. And all of us are called to the heights of holiness. That's what the Second Vatican Council teaches. Now I'm going to share a couple of other things that the council teaches that are really important for you and for this conference. Number one, that the laity have a special role out there in the world. That we have to take responsibility not to keep our faith separated from our daily life but to integrate that faith into that daily life so that we're leaven in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the family, in all the places that we think aren't very religious, the football field, the washroom. Okay? We take our faith and transform all those earthy things into things and activities that glorify God. That's one of our responsibilities. But here's the other responsibility as laity. We're the ones who are supposed to be the evangelizers. We're the ones who are supposed to be bringing others to Christ. It's not supposed to be the clergy. The clergy are supposed to feed us and empower us so that we can go out and bring others to the Lord and bring the gospel into the marketplace. A lot of times, we've always thought, oh, I'm just going to be a good example. A good example is absolutely critical. Without being a good example, our words fall flat. But the Second Vatican Council is very clear that we have a responsibility by word and by example to share the gospel with the people we work with, with the people in our neighborhood, with the people in our families, that every Catholic is called to be an evangelizer, modeling faith and being able to articulate, why is it that I believe in Jesus Christ? Why is it that I am Catholic? Why is it that the Eucharist is important to me? We're supposed to be able to share those things. Now, here's another thing that the Council taught. Remember, who educated me in the faith? It was the nuns. It was CCD. Never got any of it at home. Now, we don't have a whole lot of nuns anymore. We have some great lay CCD teachers. We have a few sisters out there. We have overworked priests. Everyone's overworked. But even if they were there, they could never replace the role of parents. The Second Vatican Council says that parents are the primary educators of their children. They have to be. Because if example is important, you don't get a lot of example in an hour a week in a classroom. Okay? You live with your parents. You see your parents act. You see not only how they pray, but how they react to crisis. The financial crisis that we're going through right now. How do you model faith? By how you handle those things. Sickness, illness, tragedy, conflict. Okay, we teach in action and teach in words. We have questions and it's usually not during CCD class. They're driving down the street. You pick them up from school. They just had a conversation with a friend and they ask you, Dad, do we really worship Mary? My friend told me I'm not a Christian because I'm a Catholic and we worship statues and worship Mary. Why don't we honor Mary, Dad? What do you say? The CCD teacher's not there. That's the teaching moment. Are you ready? I want to share something with you about dads and moms. A lot of times, religious dads will leave it to the mom. If you accept that we're supposed to have education and prayer in the home, you leave it to the mom. But I'm going to share something with you. In the early church, it's not the way it was. I'm going to tell you something about the term father. Do you know why we call priests father today? Do you know why in the early church because in ancient society it was known that it was dad's responsibility to bring home the bacon, bring home the food. But dad, first of all, begat life in the first place. They didn't know too much about biology and they thought it was the guy who deposited the seed in the woman and took initiative to begin life. And still, it is man who pursues woman and man has a pretty important role in begatting life. But the father sustains life. And so the early philosophers, even before the Christian era, they became known as fathers because spiritual life is more important than physical life. And it's a man's role, the teacher, to bring forth life and then sustain it and feed it. So in the early church, the teachers were called fathers. First it was bishops, but there were laymen who were called fathers of the church. Like St. Justin Martyr. Here's a famous one. The point is the idea is fatherhood has to do with being the primary teacher to bring home spiritual food, nourishment, to nourish the life of the Spirit in the family. I'm going to tell you something else that's shocking. There's this study that was done in Switzerland in 1994 and it was a study trying to figure out what was the most important factor in a kid leaving church and not going to church as they got older or going to church and being a regular churchgoer. Do you know that we lose 50% of our Catholic kids between 18 and 25? 50% check out. And only half of those ever come back. Usually after they screw their lives up. What's the most important factor in that tragedy? The Swiss study showed it. If a father is regular in church attendance if he's regular 44% of the kids will be regular 38% will be sporadic in attendance less than 20% will be lost to the church. This is 1994. This is after the Cultural Revolution. Secularization. If I have an inactive father who doesn't go to church and a mother who's stalwart and goes every Sunday only 2% of the kids will be regular churchgoers. Over 60% of them will be lost to the church altogether. Now this is not politically correct. But this is facts. And I think a lot of analysts have said you know, mom is a nurturer mom is a caregiver, no one can ever replace mother. But it is dad that shows kids male and female what real life is about outside the home. You have to be satisfied with what it takes to really live out there and make your way out there. And if dad doesn't think religion is important if faith is not central then it's peripheral. It's just an add-on. It's an extra. Now the call therefore is for all of us men to take on responsibility to be models but also to be teachers to be able to spiritually guide and nourish and lead our families. Now here's another thing that Vatican II taught. That the church is not primarily an institution. The church is primarily a fellowship. And the word in Latin is communio. The church is a communio because God is a communio, a fellowship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sharing a common life. Fellowship it doesn't mean back slapping and eating donuts you know, and just hanging out. That's an important way to express fellowship. But it's a much deeper thing. It's sharing a common life. God's life. Supernatural life. And all of our lives with each other. That's what really it's all about. That's what the church is supposed to be. Now I'm just going to put these things together. Something happened to me in 1971. As things were falling apart a friend of mine had a transformation. He told me that Jesus was a whole lot more than I ever knew he was. And he led me to a group of people who were experiencing fellowship. It was a prayer meeting going on. I didn't know what a prayer meeting was. I thought people standing around, you know, reciting rote prayers sounded kind of boring to me. But he was pretty excited. And it flipped him from drugs into being an evangelist. So I figured something happened. So I checked out this prayer meeting deal 1971. It was a Thursday night. I was knowing that I would actually voluntarily go to church on Thursday night. So I went like Nicodemus. I snuck down there. And I saw people who were joyful. They were getting up and sharing, standing up and sharing about how God was speaking to them. See, this was news to me. I spoke to God. I prayed every night. You know what my prayers were like? God, please show Meredith that I'm the guy for her, not John. My prayers were just like lottery tickets, you know. I was just hoping to hit. There was a lot of clouds up there. I just shot arrows up. I was hoping I'd hit a target. God is far, far away. Well, for these people, God's close. God is really close. And God is walking with them every day. Jesus is walking with them every day. And God's Word, the Bible, was alive. They were talking about God speaking to them through the Bible. I tried to read the Bible. My uncle told me I ought to read the Sermon on the Mount. But I had heard about the sexy parts in the Old Testament when I was a teen, you know, when I was about 13. So that's where I went. I went to the Old Testament looking for the sexy parts. I found them, but I also found Leviticus, and that was it. I closed the Bible. I was done. For these people, the Bible was a living Word. It wasn't just a doctrine book. God was speaking to them through the Bible. So I was psyched. I said, what do I need to do? They said, look, God's been a part of your life. You've got to ask Him to be the center of your life. You've been around your own life. You've got to ask Him to take over and be the Lord. So I did that. And I found out something. I found out this was a bigger adventure than being in a rock band. This is more exciting than being a rock star. To have the Lord and God, King of the Universe, speaking to me and guiding me. Did He have a special plan for my life? Did He have a special plan for each one of your lives? You're all called to holiness, but it's going to take different shapes. You're all called to the apostolate, but it's going to take different forms. He wants to use each one of you to change history. You want me to change history, Lord? Yep. What's going to be the power that's going to make that happen? I mean, all this responsibility stuff. Be evangelizers. Be leaders of the family. Be heroes. Be holy. This is scary stuff. You can't do this on your own power. Well, I experienced with them the power of the Holy Spirit. And we began studying the Bible together. I was writing it as an academic document. It was a Bible study sitting around. There was a fireman, a school teacher, a few rock and rollers like me who were teenagers, and a Catholic priest. And we began reading the Bible together, listening to what God was saying to us. Trying to understand what God said to Paul and what He was saying to the people of Capernaum and Nazareth. And through that, what He was saying to us. We used our brains, but we also listened with our hearts. And we shared our lives. We shared when we screwed up. We were a band of brothers. And that band of brothers sustained tremendous growth and helped me work through difficult things. Worked through alcoholism in my family. Worked through tragedy and difficulty. Helped me grow. Get out of the rock and roll world. It led me into the seminary. Then I found a new band of brothers. Went into grad school. And I didn't have that band of brothers anymore. And it was desolate. It was really difficult to do it on my own. Really difficult. And one weekend, I found in another city, I was in Washington, I drove to Baltimore to hang out for the weekend with a new band of brothers. Some young men who were seeking to live a serious spiritual life. And they challenged me. And some of those guys annoyed the hell out of me. To be honest with you. Their personalities were different. But you know what? We worked together to grow together. And we worked together to serve together. To be successful with others. And I'm just going to share a few things with you. A few thoughts in closing. Fellowship groups of men together is one of the most powerful forces today. Not only to help individual men but to change the face of the church. To enable the church in this culture war that we're in to fight together. Some of you saw the band of brothers. And it was all about men fighting together. We need to fight for our families. And we're also called to hunt together. We need to bring home the spiritual bacon for our families. Where are we going to find that? It's kind of hard to find it. It's kind of hard to fight the battle alone. We do it together with brothers. Two things I want to share in closing with you. My dad's experience. When I had my conversion he didn't quite listen to me and he certainly didn't listen to my mother who had one as well. And his actually you know he got himself into trouble with alcohol. At age 63 something happened. He met a bunch of guys that had a men's group. And they were his peers. Men that he admired and respected in business and liked them as human beings. They welcomed him in because this men's group was not closed in on itself. It was an evangelistic men's group. It was always welcoming new men. So they brought him in began reading the Bible with them. He gave his life to Jesus and the switch was turned on. As a matter of fact my dad used to call me at the university I was at the time studying to finish up my doctorate. He called me up and said, Marjolein how come you never told me there were so many Italians in the Bible? I said, Dad what do you mean Italians in the Bible? Like Pontius Pilate, you proud of him? No, no, not that scumbag. I'm talking about the Italian prophet in the Old Testament. Dad, there's no Italian prophet. He said, what are you blind? The book of the Old Testament before Matthew, what's the name on there? What's the name of that prophet? Malachi, that's an Italian name. Now listen in closing I want to just share something with you. The Crossroads Initiative is a ministry like all of you or many of you I'm a businessman I left teaching in 2001 I have a secular business international company that I had to run but I began a ministry way back in the 80s called Crossroads and it's all about equipping you guys giving you the resources to grow daily resources that you can bring back to the men's group and share video courses with discussion questions short talks about important things like the virtues, a series I did on EWTN on the Eucharist the most important place of encounter of God and to be empowered the creed what is it that we believe and how do we share it these kinds of things are things that we've produced over the years, but there's a website and I want all you guys to sign up for it today because every week I send out a commentary on the Sunday readings that you can print out you can share with your family, you can share in the men's group resources on Lent, Easter, Holy Week timely things that you don't have to think about you don't have to look for it to find it there so sign up for the email, it's a little slip and we're going to be doing a raffle at the end of the day we already have one winner so at the end of this talk, where's Terry Kent? Is Terry Kent in here? Alright Terry, come on up here let's hear it for Terry Terry gets a CD but here's my parting word commit yourself to keep growing on a daily basis, to keep feeding yourself so you can feed others, your brothers here you go on the fathers of the church, you're welcome and you can feed your families and be the provider and the warrior that you need to be thanks so much, visit our table at the Crossroads initiative up in the ballroom during the lunch time, be happy to talk with you, thanks so much
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