God is our father who loves us, who forgives us. He is always waiting for us to return to His loving embrace.
He is the Only one who can satisfy all our desires
Transcript
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The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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In the 1964 sci-fi television show The Twilight Zone, there was an episode
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called A Nice Place to Visit. Any Anyone ever remember that show? I'm I'm
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actually too young. I'm actually too young to remember that show. But this particular episode was about a man named
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Rocky Valentine. Rocky was a small-time criminal and the
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opening scene is of a robbery and he's being chased by police and eventually he
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gets shot in the back and he wakes up to next to this
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courteous man dressed in a white suit named Mr. Pip. And Mr. Pip courtestly
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informs him that he is now Rocky is now dead and that he is now in a place where
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he will get everything he ever wanted forever.
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So Rocky thinks to himself, "Well, this is great. I'm in heaven. I get to do whatever I want." And so Rocky is in
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this he's in this lavish suite, well well furnished. He goes down to the casino and he goes to the slot machines
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and instantly he wins everything. Very exciting. He goes to the cards table and
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he beats the house. He he get he's followed al around by beautiful women
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and he gets everything he ever wanted. He's overjoyed.
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But after a while, Rocky does this thing over and over again and he starts to get
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a little bored. He goes to rob a bank only to find the vault door wide open.
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He comes to the slot machines day after day and you it's this funny scene that the money is just pouring out of the slot machine. He's just like whatever.
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And Rocky comes to this this realization that he actually hasn't lived a very good life. He was he has nothing but
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crimes and dis misdemeanors, bad deeds in his background. and he thinks to himself that maybe there's a mistake.
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Maybe he's in heaven by accident. And he goes up, he confronts Mr. Pip and
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he says, "You know, heaven is not all it's cracked up to be.
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I want to go to the other place."
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Which is this dramatic line which finishes the episode. Mr. Pip inform he says, "Mr. Valentine, what makes you
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think that you're in heaven? This is the other place. And Rock Rocky
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tries to escape and he he's locked in there and it ends with this evil laugh.
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Very scary. Very scary. Very dramatic fictional obviously fictional story.
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And it it really it it shows an the idea of hell. And maybe that's idea of hell
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that we're not particularly used to. I think sometimes when we think of hell,
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we think of a dungeon with of flames ruled by a cute little creature with red
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horns and and a pitched fork tongue and tail. And sometimes we can think of of hell as
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maybe uh a cruel punishment of an unforgiving God. A lot of people have a
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struggle with the Christian faith because of this. Why would a loving God allow his people that he loves to be
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separated from him forever? I might suggest that maybe our
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conception of hell is not quite right. Maybe it's possible that it's a little
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bit more like they depict in the Twilight Zone, getting everything you ever wanted
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forever. This endless stream of meaningless
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pleasures which never satisfy you. And and for Rocky, it's the most
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agonizing torment imaginable, getting everything he wanted forever.
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CS Lewis once said that there's basically two kinds of people at at the end of end of their lives. Those who say
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to God, "Thy will be done." And those to whom God says, "Thy will be done."
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And he says that basically there's in in hell, everyone who is in hell chooses
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it, which which is a hard thing to think of. Why would anyone choose to go to hell? Even if you don't believe in hell,
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no one would actually want to go there. And I think for most of us, we think, well, I haven't I haven't done anything
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wrong. I haven't killed anyone. I haven't done anything outrightly evil. Good. That's good. That's great.
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But I think that our the understanding of hell is that the devil doesn't lead people to hell through these outright
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sort of like betrayals, but he leads them through subtle ways, through good
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things. The devil often uses our desires, our
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desires. And all of us have desires. Desires are actually a good thing. We desire love.
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We desire happiness. peace. We desire justice, forgiveness.
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Our desires are fundamentally a good thing that are given by God to lead us towards him. But the problem is that
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when we decide that we're going to satisfy our desires with something that
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doesn't work, that's what sin is. Sin is a counterfeit
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which promises to satisfy all our desires. One one of our priests, Father Alex, he loves McDonald's. And he says,
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he uses this analogy. He says, McDonald's, that big that McDonald's Big Mac has has so many promises. So many
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promises to satisfy all your desires, everything you could ever want. And 20
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minutes later, you feel like garbage, right? Sin is that counterfeit. It it
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offers us this lie that God is not enough to satisfy your desires. But but this thing is.
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How often do we fall into that counterfeit?
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How often do we turn to to food to pleasure
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to relationships that aren't good for us? addictions like alcohol, drugs,
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scrolling endlessly on our phones. Imagine that doing that for eternity.
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Do any of these things actually satisfy us?
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In fact, it's it's just the opposite. All of these things, all they promise to
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satisfy us and we indulge in them, but they never give us the satisfaction that we desire.
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In our gospel today, we hear about a man who had everything
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he ever wanted. Jesus tells this parable about a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine
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linen who feasted sumptuously every single day. He is living life. He's
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getting everything he ever wanted. But the parable goes on. And it says
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that he had there was a poor man at his door who he neglected who was begging for food but he never regarded and both
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of them die and a and Lazarus this this poor man is lifted up to heaven by the
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angels. He's brought it says to the bosom of Abraham where he experiences
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this incredible bliss, this joy. And meanwhile this rich man, he is in
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agony. He's in this place where it says a great chasm has been fixed. There's no way for
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him to cross over to where Lazarus is. And he longs for it.
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He's depo totally deprived of the vision of God. He's living in hell.
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the punishment of hell is eternal separation from God. God in whom
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alone man can possess the life and a happiness for which he was created for and for which he longs.
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God is the one thing that we all long for. It goes on to say that a will for this a
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willful turning away of mortal sin is necessary and persistence until the end. God predestines no one to hell.
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And so the rich man's his his decision to be there wasn't sort of an outright decision. I want to go to hell, but it
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was a a a a process of misdirected desires.
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He had this desire for money, for pleasure, to have everything he ever wanted. And when he gets to the end of
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his life and it's over, he realizes that it was a counterfeit,
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that it never actually satisfied all the desires of his heart. And he's looking to Lazarus, this poor man who he
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neglected all his life. He neglected God's will for him. And he sees him resting in the bosom of
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Abraham. It's an image of heaven. It's an image of resting with our eternal father forever.
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And it's only until it's too late that this rich man realizes that it was a counterfeit. And what he
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really desired was that eternal embrace of a father who loves him.
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For us today who come here with all sorts of desires of our hearts unsatisfied.
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I believe Jesus is speaking the exact same thing to us 2,000 years later.
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The decision to follow the counterfeit of sin, he's saying, is never going to
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satisfy you. The only thing that will truly satisfy
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you is the internal eternal embrace of a father who loves you.
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About 15 years ago, I moved out of the house for the first for the first time.
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I was studying my bachelor of science in nursing at the University of Ottawa and
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for me it was a big freedom thing. I was getting out of out of my parents house and I really I wanted to live the life
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and I and I truly was I had lots of friends. I was in a great program. I had
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was getting great grades. It was a young woman beautiful young woman I was dating at the time and pretty much every
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weekend I was partying and drinking with my friends. I was living the life. I had
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everything I thought I ever wanted. And yet it some of the lonely loneliest
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and most miserable nights of my life was walking home late at night after a night
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of drinking and partying. I experienced this deep emptiness
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and I was asking this question. Is this all there is to life? And if and
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if it is, it's not worth it. I was living in a a living hell, a hell
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of misdirected desires. It was around this time that I got I met
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some young uh Catholic students on the campus at the University of Ottawa who were the complete opposite of me. They
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were joyful, happy people who seemed to be fulfilled.
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And it was it was so strange for me why. And I I was honestly I was attracted to
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it. I wanted what they had. And they invited me to a weekend
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retreat. And it was there that I went back to the sacrament of reconciliation
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for the first time in in a while. And I honestly had areas of sin in my life,
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things I needed to bring up, areas of my life that I was turning for satisfaction
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that never satisfied me. And I was so nervous. I remember walking
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up to to the priest in the confessional and I told him everything. I said everything.
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And I remember he looked up at me and I'll never forget what he said.
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He said, "God is so happy that you're here right now. He's been waiting for you
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just like a father waiting for his lost son to return to him."
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And it was through this confession that I experienced for the very first time in
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my life the true fulfillment of my desires. My desire for love, compassion,
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forgiveness, for joy, for peace.
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And it was only in letting go of everything I thought I wanted that I experienced everything I actually
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wanted. the embrace of a father,
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a father who loved me and who forgave me.
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And it's possible you you come here today with your with your own stories. Maybe maybe you were like me many years
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ago. Maybe maybe you were in a dark place and but maybe you come here today and
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you are you may you might have everything you thought you ever wanted. everything you thought would make you
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happy, that would satisfy you, but it's just not working.
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I believe that Jesus is speaking to us today and he's just reminding us that those
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things, those things that are promising to satisfy you, it's never going to
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work. It's never going to work. He's saying that the only thing that
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will truly satisfy you is the embrace of God.
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A loving father who loves you, who forgives you, and he's always waiting for you.
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I think one of the most practical ways we can we can experience this this love this that that we're longing for is the
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sacrament of reconciliation. If if living in in our unsatisfied
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desires in sin is a living hell, then confession is is the place where we start to experience a living heaven,
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that eternal embrace of the father who loves us. And maybe it's been a long time since
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you've been to confession. Or maybe it's something that you do regularly, but there's still these areas
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of your life that you turn back to that never satisfy you. Or maybe you're you're not even Catholic here today.
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Wherever you're at, I I believe that confession is a beautiful place that we can experience that love, that love that
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we're longing for. And I'll admit, it can be scary. It can
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be pretty scary to go to confession. But I want to remind you, I've been I've only been a priest for for four months.
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And uh you know, sin is not all that shocking. I'm not shocked by it. I myself am a sinner. I I need to go to
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confession too regularly and I can't tell anyone your sins. I I
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am bound by the seal of confession. I can't I can't tell anyone. And confession is this beautiful place
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and and we have confession here available every single day pretty much before mass and before our vigil mass on
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on Saturdays. and you can come to a priest anytime and we can make an appointment or or or take us aside is I
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I love it's it's such a gift to be able to hear confessions because I get to show other people that mercy, that love,
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that compassion that I was shown so many years ago.
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I believe that if we start to turn away from those areas of our lives
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that don't satisfy us, we would start to experience true
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satisfaction, that love, that peace,
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that forgiveness, that joy, that happiness that we all
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desire. So, as we come today to this sacrament,
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if we're if we're able to receive Jesus today or not, to to invite him into our lives
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to say to God, God, you are enough for me.
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This thing or that thing, this this counterfeit is never it's never satisfying me. God, you are enough for
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me. Father, your love is enough for me. You are enough.
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As we come to him today, we turn away from all those areas of our
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lives and turn instead to God,
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our loving father, who is the only one who can satisfy all
