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Fr. Stan Fortuna speaks at the Cincinnati Catholic Men's Conference in 2003.
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Fr. Stan Fortuna speaks at the Cincinnati Catholic Men's Conference in 2003.
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Fr. Stan Fortuna speaks at the Cincinnati Catholic Men's Conference in 2003.
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Father Stan Fortuna, a gifted musician and member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, holds the record for the most concert appearances in one day. He performed six concerts at different high schools in Cincinnati. Father Stan is known for his work serving the poor and needy in the South Bronx. He has appeared on EWTN's Life on the Rock program and performed at events during Pope John Paul's visits. In his preaching, he emphasizes the importance of loving oneself, others, and God. He encourages people to come together and make a difference in the culture. Father Stan also discusses the need to open one's heart to God and the challenges of doing so. He believes that unity and community are powerful and necessary for success. He criticizes society for taking unnecessary risks and not taking risks for Christ. Despite only having 40 minutes to speak, Father Stan emphasizes the need to believe, love, and come together for a greater purpose. A gifted musician, and he also may hold the record for the number of concert appearances in one day. Last year, while visiting Cincinnati in support of the Youth 2000, Father Stan Fortuna actually performed six concerts at six different high schools in one day. I know that because I was his chauffeur for that very long day, and the young people loved him, and we believe you will too. First, let me tell you a little something about this great priest. The pioneering aspect comes from the fact that he was one of the eight original founding members of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal under the jurisdiction of New York's Cardinal O'Connor in 1988. And many of you may know that Father Benedict Groeschel is another one of those founding pioneers. Father Stan lives in the South Bronx now, and when you hear him, you'll know where he comes from. He, Father Groeschel, and all the other friars in their community serve the poor and the needy in the South Bronx. Father Stan has appeared numerous times on EWTN's Life on the Rock program. He performed at the Youth Rally in St. Louis during Pope John Paul's visit, as well as in Toronto last year during the Holy Father's trip there. He's now full-time into the preaching apostolate, and that's the gift he's going to share with us this morning. Brothers, from the Bronx to the heart of flyover country, let's give a warm Cincinnati welcome to Father Stan Fortuna. Good morning, good morning. Good morning, good morning. Amen. Thanks very much. I got 40 minutes, 40 minutes. My clock is already ticking. I just want to put it to you like this. You got to love him. You got to love him. You got to love him. And you can't love him if you can't love yourself and if you can't love the people around you. And that's hard. And it's a challenge, and it's worth it. You got to hear that, that it is worth it. It's worth everything. And you got to believe. And in order to believe, you got to love him. And you got to love him in order to believe. And then you got to read. You guys got to come together. You guys got to teach your kids how to come together, because you guys are the culture. And you guys got to make the difference in the culture. So that's it. I can say amen, see you later. I'm going. But I got a little bit more to say about that. And the first step towards doing that, you got to open your heart. This is something that the psychologists tell us that the men have a difficult time doing. You know, they say this is more appropriate for their women. Their women, you know, can more easily open their hearts. It's not true. Well, on the one hand, in certain aspects, it's true. But on the other hand, it's not true. Because you look at certain things how easily we can open our hearts to them, eh? Eh? I don't want to start making a list of them, you know what I'm saying? Because most of them aren't good. You know what I'm saying? You ever notice how easily your heart opens up when you see what you call the phone by, you know? Yeah. Whether you're married, whether you're ordained or whatever. You know what I'm saying? Huh? Whoa. Say yes, Lord, that's beautiful. You notice how that heart right away opens up. Oh, baby. Yes, sir. You know? You know, you see that beautiful Porsche. I've seen one, man. I went to confession just yesterday. I got the routine. I go down Lexington. I go into Manhattan, you know. It's really nice. Just get out of the Bronx. And I got a nice ritual. And coming back up, it's driving up 3rd Avenue. And it's just gorgeous like brand-new Porsche, you know? And I'm a Francis. I'll never have a Porsche. But I could look anyway, you know? That's one of the things I could look at, you know, and not get in trouble, you know? And I would say, oh, man. I wanted to like, I wanted to jump in front of the car and say to the guy, dude, man, your car is awesome, man. You know? And like, you know, you could say, oh, look at that. And my heart opens up. It's funny how it opens up little things so easily, you know? And that's what gets us into trouble. But when you open up your heart to Him, you get into trouble from another angle. It's from nose to nose, eye to eye, face to face. We get deep into the combat because we have a relationship with Him. That vest of Father's reigning from the throne helps us pray and suffer to return safely home. He blesses us with freedom. He gives us the grace, the freedom for the cross to embrace. Fight to shun the easy way, strive to climb the hill, contemplate the glory of the Father's awesome will. Remember, warrior, your goal, the cross, to embrace. That vest of Father's reigning from the throne helps us pray and suffer to return safely home. He blesses us with freedom, light shining from His face, gives us that gift of freedom for the cross to embrace. Open, open, open up my heart. Open, open, open up my heart. Fight to shun the easy way, strive to climb the hill, contemplate the glory of the Father's awesome will. Wield the sword with courage, march on with a steady pace. Remember, warrior, your goal, the cross, to embrace. Open, open, open up my heart. Open, open, open up my heart. We've got to come together, brother to brother. We've got to learn how to protect and understand every son and brother. Every single person to come into this world, we know that he's got to come through a mother. We've just got to pray unto the Father. We've said that He is our Father. Funny how we sometimes won't let people into our own backyard. Sometimes we're afraid of what they look like, sometimes the color of their skin, just I can't find a way to let them in. Might be the shape of their eyes, even people with doctor's degrees think they're so wise. You can even go to church every Sunday, and read your Bible on Monday, but Tuesday and through the rest of the week, you find out that the good things that you read, your heart is too weak to keep. So you realize that you've learned, you've got to have each other. That's why Jesus, when he was dying on the cross, he entrusted us to his mother. Just because you're a man, doesn't mean that you don't need a family. You've got to live in love, the only way you can be free. I don't care how much money, how much retirement, and all your stocks and bonds. Ain't no better than a man trapped here in the locks of the iron bars. You might wear yourself a shirt to tie and drive that nice gray Porsche that I sold, but you're going to have to learn how to break your heart and keep the love of God in your heart. You've got to believe in order to receive all the love that you need. You can't do it alone. No pain, no pain, no pain in my heart. Thank you. 32 more to go. I've got a thing going with the timekeeper here. I'm going to be done before he starts showing his thing to tell me to stop. I will be done. I will be done. See, that's the thing when we come together, man. There's power when we come together. Because we're all too weak, that's why we've got to come together. There's power in numbers, man. That's why we're all too weak. That's why we've got to come together. There's power in numbers, man. That's why we're employing more and more troops, man. Because who can go do it alone over there? Nobody. Who can do it alone over there? Nobody. Who can do it alone over here? Nobody. But we don't believe that. We're not convicted of that. If we was convicted about that as much as we was in the stock that was going to bring us money, man, you'd be pulling the dollars out. It's a big mistake. It's a big cultural mistake. Because the culture wants us to take risks. All kinds of risks. You look at some of the risks we take and it's ridiculous, pathetic, it's unfortunate. It's cowardly, it's unmanly, and it's ungodly. But we take them anyway. And when it comes time to take on the risk for Christ, to be different for Him, to be who we are for Him, to give Him permission to take control of our lives, our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our souls, even our finances, our families, and our daughters, our future, it's a whole other story. You know, when I was saying, all right, this is a men's day, answering the call, all right, I don't want to get into the anthropology, the theological and the spiritual anthropology. Actually, I do want to get into it, but not right now because I only got 30 minutes. You know what I'm saying? But like a man, I check with Brother Webster all the time. I got to tell you about, see, amongst other things, I got a brother-in-law who runs a company. And it's fitting. Like where I am in the neighborhood in the South Bronx, I am in the neighborhood up there. I'm like way down in the ghetto. I'm way down at the end up there. So when you walk up that way, you want to check this out, you just walk all the way down to the ghetto and you'll see it's way down at the end. That's where we are. And I got a book, it's called You Got to Believe. Because like I said, in order to believe, we got to come together. In order to come together, we got to love Him. He's a fireman. And man, he goes hockey and golf. These guys love coming together. It's like a passion for the golf and the hockey. Not only when they play, they're knocking each other out, but these guys are, you know, leaving the wife home for a week, and you know, in and out. I mean, my brother loves hockey so much, he's like a timekeeper and he's a goal judge like for the New York Rangers at the Garden. He gets nothing. They give him a sandwich and he got to pay for parking. And plus my sister's like, you know, and he's with the fireman schedule, he's going to the Garden and he's skating, he's reffing, he's doing all this other stuff. You know, and if we could match up just a little bit. You know, I mean, just look at sin. Let's learn from a crackhead. I mean, a crackhead, you know, they answer the call, man. You know, they answer the call. Somebody got to get the drugs, somebody want their next fix, somebody want their next pump, they're out there. And they do what they got to do to get what they got to get. I'm not suggesting that y'all go smoke crack. But I'm suggesting that we learn a lesson. And they come together, man, they stick together. You know, they got to know where to go, they got to know where to get the stuff from. And they help each other. We got to learn a lesson from that. That's like on the other end of this, you know, you got sobriety people, man, from all kinds of addictions. And it's easy to look at a crackhead, alcoholic, gambling-holic, sex-a-holic. Man, they got to come together. They come together because they know without each other, without that environment where they can be really honest and they can come together, no sobriety is not going to happen. You know, and in the book, man, I constantly refer to Brother Webster. I'm looking things up in the dictionary all the time. And so this morning when I was praying, I looked up man, I said, let me just see. And you know, Brother Webster said, man, the individual who can fulfill, who has been chosen to fulfill one's request. I mean, there's like a lot, a lot of definitions. I don't weigh into the whole theological and this spirituality and the mysticism of the anthropology, especially of Pope John Paul II. This is huge. And here's the best one. A man is one extremely devoted to something specified. I like that. A man is one who is extremely devoted to something specified. Ice cream man, milk man, pizza man. Right? Garbage man. He's specifically devoted to the garbage. And we do need the garbage man. You ever been to New York when the garbage man went on strike? You got the fireman. You got the policeman. And the Catholic man, where's he at? He's on his couch eating ice cream. And then he's spending $90 million a day with the rest of America with the weight loss program. Hello. I just figured it out. I was praying for a statistic and I was doing a mission in California and on the news it came. $33 billion. Did you see the buh? Buh. $33 billion annually America spends on weight loss programs. Break that down. That's like $90,400,000 and something thousand and change per day. Per day! That would be nice just per life. Just half of that, quarter of that, any of that. And that's to lose the weight. Lose the weight! Most of the Catholic men, where are they? Physically, they're probably on their couch, they're not eating ice cream they're engaging the pizza man and the ice cream man and all these other kind of man. But spiritually, we're probably even in worse shape. And there's only one way that's going to change. Your relationship with Him and you being bold enough to step out and say honey, I'm going out tonight and start canceling things. Well, I can't do... What do you mean you can't? You can't? Sure you can! You might not want to. Let's clean up the language. You know? I can't do that. Wait, back up. Well, you know, like we do that today. It's like that Bud commercial. I was one of the... A couple years ago in the Super Bowl with all the Guido Cuisines Italianos I'm half Italian, half Greek. And then when they walk in the guy goes like, how you doing? How you doing? Alright, how you doing? Alright, how you doing? How you doing? Alright, how you doing? And the guy comes in with the hat. He comes from like Cincinnati. He's like, well, how you doing? He goes, well, I'm just fine. So nice to see you. Oh, you people are so kind out here. Everybody ask me how I'm doing. Well, let me tell you. My wife went to the bathroom and... And the other guy comes in and he goes, oh, don't ask how you doing. Look at the niceties. No, I can't do that. No, I can't go. You can't go. You're gonna have to sit down. You're gonna have to plan. And what's the bottom line? The bottom line, you're gonna have to suffer. And we have been so polluted by cultural corruption that we find no meaning. We find no value in suffering. Matter of fact, we work really hard to avoid it at all costs. And this really, it's a type of a castration, fellas. Applause It's a type of a castration. One extremely devoted to something specified. And if the specific thing that we are devoted to is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ crucified through our personal relationships and if we are willing to... Look, you gotta eat every day. Sooner or later, sometime or another. And if you don't eat in the afternoon, you make up for it at nighttime. How many of you guys ate like a Burger King or some other kind of stupid thing when you're driving or when you're working or when you're walking? You find a way to do it. You say, well, I can't eat now. Well, then you eat later. But you make sure that you eat. And then your body makes sure that after you eat, you do what you gotta do. Cause if that don't work, you're in trouble. So God has given us everything we need. And you know, if the body breaks down, the system breaks down, then we find a way to do. We get a wheelchair, get somebody to help us. And then, so we do what we gotta do. This is the most important lesson to learn that's gonna cost you. I like the way that Larry Bird put it, man, when he started coaching the Pacers. Cause they were all interviewing him and everything. They said, hey, coach, you know, what are you, what are you gonna, what are you gonna expect of your players? He said, well, I'm only gonna expect one thing. I said, what's that? He said, everything. Very cool. It's like the gospel of Larry Bird. And you know what? That's not too far from what we need to get this team together of Catholic men. And non-Catholic men. But believing men in Jesus Christ. And we've got to put our Catholic twist on it. And if you come from another tradition, then you put your twist on it. And we come together and we twist together and we make a fabric that is gonna be indestructible. Because the content of this fabric, it's like that Marine that got wounded and they said he's the luckiest man on earth because four bullets to the head. Pow, pow, pow, pow. And he was there smiling because of Teflon. We'll be able to take the hits. We'll be able to take the hits. We've got to be able to take the hits and move. And that's what we need. And spiritually, fellas, we're not there. But let me tell you something. The joy, the joy of bouncing back, the joy of bouncing back is gonna give you the courage to come together. The joy of bouncing back is gonna give you, guys, the courage and the spiritual testosterone to come together. Because the culture needs you. The culture is waiting for you. And the culture, if you don't stand up to it with the power beyond yourself, the culture will make you impotent. The culture will make you not be able to find pleasure in giving of yourself to Christ in your relationship with Him. And the culture will castrate you from your ability to give yourself to your brothers and to create an opportunity and a challenge for your brother to give himself to you. And this is the key. You know, the Bible says to us in Proverbs 3, verse 13, Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding. You're not gonna find no wisdom unless you read. Unless you read the right thing. And you're not gonna read and find the right thing unless you believe. That's why I boiled down my book the name of my book is You Got To Believe and I write my book like I talk. I made them publishers put it in the contract. And they guys said, well, this is a gentleman's agreement. I said, well, I'm not a gentleman. I said, if you shake my hand today, if you get run over by a bus tomorrow, whose hand am I gonna shake? A dead man's hand. It ain't gonna do me no good. Put it in the contract. I said, Father, trust me. I said, when people say trust me, I disbelieve them. They say, trust me, it's over. I said, well, then, let's not have no contract. He said, well, no, we need to have a contract. I said, well, put it in the contract. He put it in the contract. They sent me a draft of the first letter. He put all my G's back on my words. Because when I said, do you understand what I am saying? That's not how I talk. Do you understand what I'm saying? S-A-Y-I-N. So I'm talking to you in the book, you see. And he said, well, sometimes you have the G and sometimes you don't have the G. That's right. That's why I'm the author and you're the publisher. So it's in the book. But you've got to believe. And the cool thing about the book is bringing you to the word of God. My book. You've got to be able to dribble the ball with both hands. You've got to be able to go left hand, right hand with your layup. With the scripture and the tradition. You've got to be that way. Otherwise, no wisdom. Proverbs 5, verse 21. A man's ways are in full view of the Lord and he examines all his past. There's no hiding from him and we can call each other and we've got to call each other to honesty, fellas. So that's why this business of, nah, I can't make it. Liar! Say, well, I can't make it. Now, you don't have to tell everybody your business. But you've got to clean up the language, man. He said, well, I can't make it except, you know, I'm exhausted. I'm not feeling up to it tonight. Then he said, well, don't worry, man. I'll feel up to it for you. Come on. Just come on. Let's go. Start pulling each other in. Start challenging each other. Start loving each other like that. He said, what do you mean you can't? He said, well, where do you got to go? What do you got to do? You know, and then maybe, you know, you got to give people space and say, well, look, I just got a lot going on. I don't want to talk about it now. Okay. At least that's a minimum. But just like, I can't make it. Just like the kid said, what's the matter, honey? Nothing. Do you ever talk to her like that? Honey, what's the matter? Nothing. Hold up. Okay, I got it. Between the lines. I mean, just like walk away, don't say nothing because she'll kill you. There's plenty of something. That's some loaded nothing. And we got to clean up our language. Proverbs chapter 6, verse 28. Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? Sometimes we think so. Just like the kids who say, well, I, in the rap music, I listen to the bad stuff. I don't listen to the lyrics. I just like the beat. That's garbage. That's like trying to walk on hot coals without, that's like saying, well, I look into pornography because I want to study semiotography. You know, I like the, I like the hair styling. That's really what that was. Actually, I'm interested in the production of the music in the background. I find that fascinating. I'm not really looking at that other stuff. Who you fooling? And that's Proverbs chapter 6, verse 28. Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched? The answer is no. Proverbs chapter 8, verses 34 to 36. Blessed is the man who listens to me. Watching barely at my doors. Waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord. But whoever fails to find me harms himself. And all who hate me love death. And without realizing it, the culture corrupts us and seduces us into loving death. The pretty poison of death. And we're killing ourselves. And we're assisting in the mass murder of our children and of our culture. And it's up to you. And it's up to me. It's up to us to come together in Christ to make a difference. That's how it's gotta be, fellas. And the cultural corruption is so deep it's so deep it reduces the problems we encounter. Because listen, there's a lot of problems. There's international political problems. There's problems of corruption in the church. There's problems of corruption in politics. There's politics of there's problems of corruption in the financial world. Everywhere. Everywhere. It's almost like trouble is like God. The Bible says that God is no respecter of persons. Neither is trouble. So I don't care who you are. And God don't care who you are. Because He wants to love you and He wants you to love with His love with His love. But yet we try the culture of death tries to reduce the problems of suffering. The problems between the power of God and the world between grace and nature to what's called a monistic form. That's a viewpoint or a theory that reduces all phenomenon to one principle. Me. Me. How I feel. What am I gonna get? Well, what I gotta do? Well, you're a priest. You go around. You do this. You don't know what I have. Ho, ho, ho, ho. You know? Oh, well, this one here. He does this. Well, you don't know. Ho, ho, ho, ho. And we reduce everything to one principle of reality. Me. My life. My family. My money. My time. What's gonna happen to me? My salvation. Important things to be concerned about. And you're gonna lose them all. Unless you have and deepen and rejoice in and thrive on that relationship with Jesus Christ and coming together. Small groups that you parish. Neighborhood groups. Multiple ways. Not just one way. But many ways. People you can call. People that you can email. People that you come to every Tuesday night. And then most especially when somebody needs you. When God wants to send you. What's this whole thing about? Answering the call. A men's group. Thursday night, 7.30. Somebody calls you on Friday. I went to my men's group Thursday. Call me. Come to the group on Wednesday. He needs you now! Are you gonna be willing to go? Are you gonna give God permission to bust in on your life like that? That's what Mother Teresa used to say. Give God permission. A lady like that. From an uppercut that would knock out Tyson. Little Mother Teresa like that. Give God permission. You gotta give God permission. What do you mean give God permission? He created the universe. Who am I? That's a good question. St. Francis used to pray like that. Who are you? And who am I? Who are you? And who am I? Over and over and over. Just pray the question. Because a lot of times there's a power in a question. And that's stressing over the answer. Sometimes we stress over answers. And we don't get lost in the question. And the question is will you give God permission to deepen and enlighten and maybe even in some instances here start or restart the relationship with Him. Now a lot of times what we want to do we want to try to escape. Twelve minutes to go. How we doing? We're close? We're close, right? I got like twelve minutes, see that? I'm gonna be done before you, trust me. I wanna read real quick though. Right here from John. The Gospel of John. Check this out now. Here's the attitude. Here's the attitude. The Master Himself. Check this out. Amen, Amen. He's repeating Himself. Whenever Jesus talks, brothers we gotta pay attention. Big time attention. And when the Master repeats Himself it's down on the floor we go. Amen, Amen. I say to you unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it just remains a grain of wheat. But if it dies it produces much fruit. Whoever loves His life in this world loses it. And whoever hates His life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves Me must follow Me and where I am there also will My servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves Me. I am troubled now and yet what should I say? Father save me from this hour? But it was for this very purpose that I came to this hour. He understood it as the very purpose why God sent Him to that troubled moment. And brothers we got plenty trouble. Plenty, plenty trouble in our world in the culture in our families in our own lives in our histories in some of the stupid decisions we've made and maybe some of the dumb things that was done to us. But you know what? None of it not even all of it combined together and multiplied infinitely can compare with the magnitude and the bigness of what Father said we need something bigger to live for. We need to live for it all. All. All. None of this stuff like I got twenty dollars maybe I'll give you five. All. The freedom to say here you go here take it like a reckless gambler. Double or nothing. Everything. Then you go home and say alright I get divorced I lose the kids I lose the house I lose the that. I'm not suggesting that you go gambling fellas. I'm just suggesting that you dig down deep and that you find what Saint Paul calls that inward decision. And maybe some of you never made that before for him. Say well I wanna have a nice life. Nice ain't in the Bible. Find it. Find it. Nice ain't in the Bible. My friend Father William says all nice people are gonna go to hell. The Bible talks about the holy the righteous the merciful the peacemaker. Read Matthew chapter 5 and 6. Nice ain't in there. But we try to escape. Escape means to get away. It means to avoid a threatening evil. It means to stay out of the way. It means to avoid to fail to be noticed. We escape the call. We try to escape each other. I ain't going to no meeting. I don't have no group in my parish. Start one. I can't start a group. What do you mean you can't start a group? There you go. I can't start a group. Yes you can. I'm a coward. I'm afraid to start a group. I don't even know the person. I'm afraid. Who's a man enough even to say I don't know. And you know you might not want to use that language I'm afraid. Well I've never done this before and I've never thought about it and I don't really feel up to the core. Quite frankly because my knees are shaking. I don't like the pastor. That means I got to talk to the pastor. I'm afraid of the pastor. Well get somebody else and say come on let's go talk to the pastor. All three of us. And let's just ask him man. Just like when you ask the first girl to go out on your date. Say honey can I have your phone number? Do you remember that? So how do you know about that? I wasn't born a priest brother. Wasn't my idea. This whole thing wasn't my idea. If you want to say and some of you might be thinking out there how did he get to be a priest? Look at him. If you want to know go by the table we got a video it's on the video for two hours I'll tell you the whole story right over there. All the money goes to the work with the poor. Don't worry I'm not trying to rip you off. You're going to help the poor. He's going to go and help the poor fellas. You're going to be feeding people. You're going to be putting people to school. You're going to be preventing people from becoming homeless. But this wasn't my idea. But it's like when you first encountered your first girlfriend and you sort of had to suffer man. You had to take a risk. But what a risk. God take the risk. Look at her. Look at her. I take the risk. If she says no I say no. And then you go and lie. What happened? Did you ask her? Nah I didn't ask her man. I want to see her friend. Liar. We got to start doing that with each other man. Yeah but I don't have a group in my parish. I don't even really go to church. Alright so then just would you give God permission to say look I don't know what to do. I don't I'm trying to find a church I don't know if I should go to just ask her. Ask her. I don't really know how to pray. And your best prayer is don't tell me that. Tell him. Say alright I don't know how to pray. That might be the most powerful prayer that you've ever prayed in your life. Cause you're coming clean with God. And you got to start learning how to do that with each other. I don't want to go talk to the we don't have this kind of group man the pastor he's you know the pastor's into all that other stuff and he's going to be into this. So then don't do it at your parish. Start it at your home. Start it somewhere. Go to Starbucks man and do some don't ask too much for the coffee just drink drink your own coffee. But but go but but go to the park bench go to the street go somewhere. But do something. Come together. And then when you guys come together you're going to be so tight and Christ is going to be thriving so deeply in your life with every beat of your heart that you ain't going to care what the pastor says. So you say hey pastor how you doing brother? What do you mean brother? Excuse me brother pastor sir Monsignor or whatever you want you to call him call him what he wants you to call him but love him. So when you can start loving him then you're going to let God love you that relationship you're going to let yourself be so loved your wife's not going to know you she's going to say where's my husband at? Your kids are going to say what happened to daddy? You know who is this? And for that to happen you're going to have to suffer to embrace to embrace means to clasp in the arms to cherish, to love that's why I said to embrace the cross God gives us the power and the freedom for the cross to embrace to embrace means to take up readily and gladly to avail oneself to take in and to include as a part to welcome and to accept you all got to start embracing each other and by the way if some of you all are being gripped by the power whether it's drugs economics whether it's adulterous relationships whether it's internet pornography or any other type of stuff it's learning how to embrace Christ and embrace one another that is going to be the key to the release from all the defects of these sins your personal sins the history of your family tree sins of addiction and the sins of the culture and for that to happen you are going to have to suffer you're going to have to suffer everybody got to suffer brothers I'm going to leave you with this because I don't want to be late get ready to hit the play button back there brother and I'm just going to leave it with this if you don't like rap music that's ok but you got to love the message because if you're going to follow Christ you got to carry the cross and if you're going to carry the cross you got to suffer this is the key to your relationship with Him to your relationship with yourself and to your relationship with your brothers hit it brother you're not the only one rich man goes to the doctor going to find out all the rich food he ate going to make him die of gout wiping kids of crime suffering the pain wondering if they don't change going to die the same woman's man is dead and gone got no more salary take a honey's van go to the arts gallery she's got to try to find some other things that she can sell now she knows how it feels living in a single parent's hell what about the woman's head kids in the ghetto who the rich woman understands her sister did the best she could getting kicked around prostitution smoking crack she had to work for free making money lying on her back the two now connected with all that they've been through they seek the goods that come from suffering change their point of view it's going to come to me it's going to come to you everybody got to suffer and they got to go through you think that you're the only one that got to suffer you think that you're the only one with pain and suffer everybody everybody got to think they got to suffer rich or poor don't matter got to suffer you think that you're the only one that got to suffer you think that you're the only one with pain and suffer everybody everybody got to think they got to suffer rich or poor don't matter got to suffer everybody ain't just you yeah ain't just you I don't think the thug thing is cold I think the thug thing is cold check out what happened to the boy in the park he was just eight years old the thug drug dealer chasing down another thug brother ran into the park there was the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four and the four I've got 14 seconds left, baby! I've got 14 seconds left, baby!
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