What can you all, those of you who might be asleep. Okay, so let's get this thing started down. Well, thanks for having me. I think I was at, saw us about 20, about 20 years ago, I did a talk. I was part of a conversation here. And the interesting thing actually now, at that time actually a lot of African artists were sort of, you know, regarded as not being particularly part of a global conversation. African artists were either anonymous artists that sort of inspired Western modernism, Picasso and so on. There was a primitivism exhibition in the 80s, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And it was a rather odd situation because, you know, we are contemporary people. We, you know, we, we watch the same subs on TV and, you know, we're part of a modern conversation. And African artists who produced modern art were somehow being dismissed as being a derivative of Western modernism. And so as somebody coming from a Nigerian family, a middle-class Nigerian family grew up in Lagos, the same access to everything. You know, grew up watching Sesame Street. And for those of you who know Nigerian soap operas, also watched things like Baba Salon TV. So when I came into London from Nigeria, I came to, first I came to school. And then went to art school. And I couldn't quite understand the kind of discrimination that existed and the level of, you know, ignorance really to be frank.  Then I, because that was my art training, I trained as a painter. And, you know, at that time I was looking at people like Van Gogh and Sikert and Bomberg and the London School as well. And then I decided I was going to become political in the practice. You know, I got interested in political art. I was making work about Perestroika, which is what was happening in the then Soviet Union. And I'm sure, you know, this has been said over and over again. So those of you who would like to yawn, you can yawn now. No, but, you know, it's an important point. So I was making work about Perestroika. And one of my tutors when I was at, but I'm sure actually at the time, said, why aren't you producing authentic African art? What's Russia got to do with you? Why aren't you producing ethnic art? Then I started to ask the question about authenticity. What is authenticity for a contemporary Nigerian? You know, I grew up in a Yoruba household. Yes, of course, I do speak Yoruba. I speak my own language and, you know, as you would in Nigeria, you'd speak English at school. Now, I've been thinking about this. My generation, we are completely different. We're not, we can't go back to tradition. A number of my, you know, English colleagues were not. Expected to look at medieval art or make work about Morris dancing. So why would I then be expected to care about traditional Africa? I'm not interested. History is important, of course. And I've been to a number of ethnographic museums I used to go to the Museum of Mankind just off Cork Street in those days. So off I went to the Museum of Mankind and the British Museum in search of my authentic African-ness. I didn't find it there. I just found very scary masks there. Ritual, those objects are ritual objects. I'd rather watch Soul Train, to be honest. This is how I grew up. So where was I? Yes, so the story about the Tuto, that's where I was. Yes. So I went to Brixton Market. Brixton Market, yeah. To, in search of my authenticity. And well, went to the fabric shop there. Then I started talking to them about the fabrics. When I was in Nigeria, I used to, you know, see the batik and I used to wear the fabrics. And, but I actually grew up thinking those fabrics were authentically African. Then realized what I was told in the shop that they're Dutch fabrics, influenced by Indonesian batik. Then produced in Manchester and also in Holland. Now I have to give you context here. I was at art school. So I was studying art and I was studying, you know, abstract expressionists.  I never could really find what people found there, but it was supposed to be quite kind of spiritual. You know, so I did go in there to contemplate the Rothkos. But anyway, so back to my work. I was looking for direction. And so, but I could not find myself in the conversations about global art and contemporary art. In the, I think it must be in the 80s, there was a show at the Pompidou Center called Magishare Latte. I think that was the first exhibition in which non-Western artists were featured on a kind of an international platform. But then those artists, the Western artists were, were featured as artists, but the non-Western artists were featured as shamans or magicians. And, but I always wanted to be a contemporary artist and be part of the conversation. And I was interested in, in, you know, pop art. And, and of course, the, at that time, it was really fashionable to look at the discourse around post-modernism and feminism at the time. And there was a lot of, you know, writing on post-colonial theory. So there was, you know, a questioning of the Western canon. And so the, it was a time of the non-white male artists, you know, challenging the system and a certain their own visibility. So at the time, a number of American feminist artists, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and, you know, David Hammons in the United States. And Rashid, who ran in the UK, he started a magazine called Third Text. And Third Text was a critical text magazine that kind of dealt with, you know, non-Western practices and tried to make them visible. Now, it's important to do all this talking because it's important to understand that art doesn't actually happen in a vacuum and to actually understand the political and the historical context of my practice. And so this was a time also when Margaret Thatcher was in power. And Margaret Thatcher was talking about conservative Victorian values. Victorian values were values I couldn't possibly identify with at the time because, of course, we all know what happened in the colonial era and what, well, the Victorians did to my heritage. So, and so, back to you, to the work. I started then to think about Western modernism but also to think about high art and popular culture. And so the first series of works I did using the fabrics, I did double-dutch. I was one of the early paintings and I was kind of looking at fragmenting this modernist idea of abstraction but then introducing a pattern and fabric into that. Now, the, so I'll just show you a number of works. So, starting with painting and looking at this notion of authenticity.  I mean, that came, I did those paintings much later on. But the work then evolved into, first of all, I mean, looking at the formal aspect of the work and representing them in different ways so that the actual gallery wall becomes part of the work. It's not separate. The context becomes part of the work. And there are also, I mean, things like fetish paintings which are just kind of, parody is also a very important aspect of the work. It's a sort of mimicking of what an African artist is supposed to do but then, and surely now actually, all the parts are industrially produced and essentially actually Western. It's a New York toy painting and I must also add, now the work, people don't often talk about the aesthetic aspect of my work. Now, essentially I consider myself I'm an estate and an artist. I do want to challenge things. There's a degree of activism in the work. But the activism is also formal in nature. So there is a questioning that goes on within the form of the work itself. And so the first move into working with costumes well, I was inspired to do that whilst looking through some costumes at the Victoria and Albert Museum. And then I started what I describe as ethnic size in the aristocracy. And then you will notice that some of the figures are headless. And the headlessness actually began as a joke about the French Revolution. And when the aristocracy had the heads chopped off. So this is based on Gainsborough, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. So that's Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their heads. It's a newly married couple in the original painting they're in their estate.  And so what I've done is gently remove the estates and their heads. So, and well, this actually was done in 1998, but it remains topical of course with the UK, but unfortunately discrimination that's been going on, you know, alien obsessives, mom, dad and the kids, it's a kind of regular nuclear family. You know, we were kind of scared of people that kind of don't look like us. And there's a degree of, and of course, dysfunctional family. Again, it's poking fun out of a kind of ridiculous situation really and cloud nine. So I did some things with, you know, with space. And then so the, a lot of the work, and that still sort of happens, there are, you will, as I go through, so what I've decided to do, because after all I'm a visual artist, I've decided actually I'm going to just show you a lot of images.  And so a lot of kind of politics does end time to the work that some of them are related to current affairs, but they're not, they're not necessarily about politics, they're political in themselves. But also essentially they're a form of poetry. And art after all, it's a form of magic making and it has the potential for transformation. And so that's that aspect I'm interested in. I'm not necessarily interested in the kind of literal kind of protest art I'm interested in. There is also always a degree of frivolity in the work, but actually I'm interested in my own right to aesthetic frivolity as an artist of African origin. In other words, I don't always have to be somebody kind of protesting against something. Actually I do have the freedom to enjoy my work and to basically indulge in whatever fantasies I wish to. And this is based on Fragonard's painting.  It may not actually be obvious, but by actually deconstructing aristocratic iconography, I'm exploring the issue of class war and the inequality between the North and the South and the inequality between the haves and have nots. But this is not, this is done in a kind of a fun way, but it does underpin the work. So there are those things there. There might not be immediately obvious, of course. And then of course, there's what's known as institutional critique. So I do make interventions into period homes or other kind of in a museum settings. But again, that's not necessarily, I mean, I'm not necessarily fond of art speak myself. I do relate to them, understand them and then chuck them in the bin and just enjoy my work. So this is a flower cloud and I also happen to enjoy ballet. And actually, I don't have that film here, but some of you may have seen it. I saw, I made a piece based on Swan Lake called Odila and Odette.  And they mirror each other, but it looks like a mirror, but you may be able to find it online. But so there's always an element of theatricality performance, masquerade in the work. And there is a degree too of Gallo's humor in the work. How to block two heads at once. Of course, we know that there's a lot of conflict in the world and so the work does touch on some of those things. And this is, so anyway, I should just show you some pictures. Some of them I will talk about. Some of them I won't remember why I did them. But it doesn't matter, let's just look up, have fun. And of course, this is, I was exploring things to do with the environment. So this, I did a series based on global warming. And you can see the kids kind of precariously falling off this overheating globe. I really like color and I enjoy picking fabrics. And of course, I love designing frogs. I have, I work with a number of great costumers in my studio and I work with a number of really great people in my studio and we just have fun designing fun things.  As you can see, I did the series at the time of the riots in London and also the Arab Spring, yeah. And this is my tribute to bankers in fact at the time of the economic crisis. So I did a show at Stephen Friedman Gallery and this is the Last Supper. I think there's a central figure there that's Bakos, the god of wine is central. So he's replaced the figure of Christ in that image. And those kind of champagne kids and say no more. I'm a bit of a hypocrite though because I do like the money. So, you know, cake man also another tribute to bankers. And that's something I did for crisis, the homeless charity, impelled aristocrat. Ladder kids, I did other bands museum in the US. That's a piece based on aspiration. And then pieces from a show I have in New York at the moment at James Coyne Gallery in Chelsea. The whole show is about the environment. So the ballerinas they're based on, on Greek gods and they've got weapons. It's from a show called Rage of the Ballet Gods. And it's this ballerinas as Greek gods where they've got this weapons and they've got gloves on their heads depicting various environmental disasters. And this is the refugee astronauts. After the apocalypse, I can never say that word. I can't get my your bad tongue around some English words. But anyway, there you go. Some of you may have seen this. This was at the Haywood Gallery.  Yeah, this was a documenter. And I don't think it needs much explanation. So it's about sex tourism. And I was reading about the Grand Tour and that was the time when people used to go to Italy and France to learn about culture. But I read that they learned about other things instead. So some of the work does come out of things I read and a scramble for Africa. This is in the 19th century when Africa was being divided by European countries. And the kind of 14 European countries, I think, decided that they would take a piece from, divide Africa into different countries. And so this is me reimagining that conference, the Berlin Conference, but then they're kind of headless. So this is an installation I did at the National Gallery. And I remember that some of the people on the board at the National Gallery were not entirely pleased about this intervention. So I removed portraits of some slave owners and replaced them with those figures. And they're shooting a pheasant in the middle of the National Gallery. Kind of blooded pheasant. And this is based on a French ship that sank off the coast of Senegal, I think. I think, yeah, okay. And another crash, okay. So I'm just going to go through some, you know, how am I doing for time, actually? I guess egg fights are based on Hollywood's travels. And it's about two groups of people that had a war about which side of the egg do you eat first? Something along, something silly. And so that's what that's based on, based on Hollywood's travels. And then I did this project called the British Library of the Brighting Pavilion. And so there are 10,000 books. This was made when there was all the talk about foreigners, you know, and the books have the names of British people who came from elsewhere, basically, originally. And this is currently a show at the William Morris Museum in Walthamstow. I took the William Morris family portraits and reconstructed them with the local people of Walthamstow. And so then I produced these diptychs. William Morris, of course, was a great socialist. And so you can see the difference. On the right, the people who live in Walthamstow now. It's become very multicultural, so it's a way of exploring the changes, I guess, in Britain through those William Morris portraits. And there's a dress displayed there. Who that? Okay, and then I did a series on the London Underground, photographs on the London Underground in 1805, no, 1998. That was a long time ago. The area of Victoria and Dandy, I enjoyed dressing up. It was fun. We took over this stately home for three days and got dressed and had our photographs taken. And that was a lot of fun to do. And none of us could keep a straight face shooting this one. But being very professional, of course, we got it done. And then the picture of Dorian Gray. I'm rather fond of Oscar Wilde writings. And also looking, using the picture of Dorian Gray to talk about my own disability. For those of you who don't know, I got a virus when I was 19. In my spine, which left me completely paralyzed. And I've addressed some of that in my work, but not directly. But Dorian Gray is about time and the body and also the aging of a Dandy. And when I was much younger, I fancied myself as a Dandy. But so I was very much interested in Dandy, and I was reading a lot about it. And people like Bob Romo. And so I made this series of work, the picture of Dorian Gray. And then this is what based on Goya's the sleep of reason produces monsters. The sleep of reason produces monsters. Now I did those, I think after George Bush, I think Dobby said something about the axis of evil. And so I explored this notion of irrationality. Irrationality. And I did it through the reconstruction of Goya's etchings. And series of photographs based on Dandy's Inferno and the different levels of hell all shot in my studio. Some things I will talk about, some things I will not talk about. But it doesn't matter. So, and I very much like Andy Warhol. So those are some Warhol, well, myself as Warhol. Those pictures are in my show in New York at the moment. So if you happen to be hanging out in New York, I just came back and loved it. And so if you're hanging out in New York, you can check them out in Chelsea and check out the new Whitney Museum as well in New York. It's pretty cool. Okay, so, and those are photo stills from my film. That's the first film I made. I lived in Stockholm for six months and I worked with Swedish television. But that film is, in fact, about the Iraq war. While I was living in Stockholm, I discovered the story of Gustav III, who was fighting wars in Russia in the 18th century and while these people were starving at home. And but he loved going to the ball. And so he got shot while he was at the ball. And I wanted to transform the Gustav himself to a woman and his killer to a woman. I kind of felt I just wanted to change the power dynamics within that narrative. So plus I wanted to dress up a lot of actors and have fun there. And this is another film I made, which is based on Traviata, Puccini. And I've jumped too fast there, but anyway. And so photo stills from Odile and the Dead, a collaboration I did with the Royal Opera House in Conagag and I subsequently went back to do more collaborations with the Royal Opera House. And I've got a kind of a ballerina based on Michael Fontaine spinning around in a glass ball. It's a fun piece. My first piece that actually kind of moves. And that's still, you can see that at the Royal Opera House. If you would care to look up, if you look down, you'd miss it. So it's quite high up. So this is my, I went to do public art, public art. I decided I should be a nice person and take my work outside of the elitist gallery. Put it on the street. So when I was invited to do this in Trafalgar Square, I really enjoyed it. I, for the first time I could actually have great conversations with cabbies, London cabbies about the fourth plinth. And all the cab drivers know about the fourth plinth and they have an opinion. And so this is based on Nelson's ship in a bottle. And with it. And this is now in Greenwich. So you can see it there, it's permanently installed. And this is the ballerina of the Royal Opera House. This is in Howard Place, not too far from Victoria Station. It's called Wind Sculpture. And it's the fabric blowing in the wind. I think it's delightful, don't you? So I think art should be fun. And of course I have to mention Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Because Yorkshire Sculpture Park commissioned the first wind sculptures. And so, and I know that I will be in trouble if I don't pick up Yorkshire Sculpture Park. So pick up to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Okay, so. Okay, let's move on from that. Okay, so. And Chicago, Chicago, yeah, Chicago. I'm Museum of Contemporary at Chicago. Installation there. Bazuma, I mean, that's a Bazuma. And Germany, I think somewhere, yeah. Ah, this is my studio. They said where the magic happens. So, well, my studio actually, I should tell you about my studio. I have a project space in my studio. It's been going since 1998. And I have this space downstairs. I work upstairs. And I have the proposal box outside of the space. And artists put in proposals. And they get residences for a month. I accept all the group shows. And I do a supper club every two months with a based on, based on an artist. And a chef cooks a meal based on that artist. And you can buy tickets online. And the money goes from the supper clubs, go back into supporting the artists. I've been doing that since 1998. And I learned a lot as well, actually, because that's how I managed to stay in touch with a younger generation. And, let's see, can't actually make out what those... Oh, this is guest projects. Ah, this is a supper club, yeah. I think that's all I've got to say. Thank you.


What's up y'all today? We're about to be watching some of them dunks that you cannot believe happened in a regular season game. Ones that you would expect to see in a dunk contest, but not in a real game. I found out today that like 70% of y'all that are watching this video aren't even subscribed to the channel. So subscribe because you never miss a reaction video. Subscribe.  Subscribe. Do I need to say it one more time? Subscribe. 11 minutes long of great dunks. I might get much better than this. Link in the description to the original Conti created for this one. Let's get into it with the lob city days. Okay, I'm sorry, we're already pausing.  Who was this pass intended for? Hello? Anyway, off the backboard, windmill. Bro, if you do not remember these lob city days, it was some of the best, most entertaining basketball. If you like high-flying dunks, this was the team that you were a fan of back there. If you're a fan of Chris Paul too. All right, next one. We got Zach Levine on the break, 360. Oh my God, Zach Levine, 360.  Actually, that's not true. He's done it a few times, but like, come on, man, that's a dunk contest dunk for real. Next. Oh, Bronn. Is this the one where he does the, he does the, I think that was like a replica of Kobe. Kobe's done that dunk before. And then he said after this game, he didn't do it on purpose. Kobe just took over his body. Uh-oh. Dennis Smith, Jr. Self lob. Okay. Self bounce lob to him. When Dennis Smith, Jr. was in Dallas, I thought he was going to be pretty nice. And then they shipped him out. Like a week later, felt like, oh man, D-Rose, oh man, in the garden. Hold on. Back scratcher. Oh, what? I thought it was going to be the back scratcher. It was the fur. Oh my God. He's got one in the garden where it is the super low back scratcher. But this one was, uh, electric, electric player, D-Rose was. Marvin Bagley, 360. Ooh, catch. Yup. See, I remember a lot of these plays, bro. The posters and the dunks is something I will remember, sometimes, not all the times, sometimes. And that was, that was one. That was one. Yeah. I don't know. This one. Yeah. Honest. He, he was gliding. He was gliding. He had enough time to, like, tie his shoe in the air if he really wanted to. He was gliding. Uh-oh. Oh my God. This is Gerald. Gerald Green. Throw my, that is the nastiest in-game dunk I've ever seen. And I can say that with confidence. That is the nastiest in-game dunk I have ever, ever seen. Look how, when you see this clip again, look how high this man gets on this lob. He could kiss the rim if he wanted to.  Come on, man. The man did that with four fingers, if you don't know. Shout out to Marshawn Brooks for throwing the lob, what we have here. We having another, okay, I thought we was about to have another LeBron moment, but no, it is AG going up to get it to himself. Mmm. Okay. Oh, oh.  Like Griffith was injured, Detroit stood no chance, no chance in this series. They might as well gave Milwaukee a buy because those four games were nothing. Okay. All right. Keep running with me.  My apologies. My apologies. That was this season. That's a cool dunk though. Is that a dunk contest dunk? Is that a, I can't believe he did that in-game dunk. Ja. That is, that is, bro. When you, and whenever you see a smaller player go up that high and go get it, come on, man. Yikes. It's not, you can do about that. Oh, yes. Oh, oh, between the legs. Yup. Yup. I do remember so many of these, another lob city one. I'm guessing you probably going to see a lot of lob city in this video because they just made it fun.  That's funny. They ended up losing this series obviously, but it doesn't look like a high difficulty dunk because he's so big, but the man just did a windmill, slow old pump fake, and he windmilled at seven foot. I mean, hey, that's, that's impressive. It is impressive. It don't look like it, but it is. Okay. JB with a steal all alone. What are you going to do with a JB 360 360? All right. Okay. That was a couple of weeks ago, wasn't it? Man, I miss basketball. Oh my God. The Lakers are we, we're about to get what, Kobe? Yup. Recipes. Kobe man. Oh my God. Every time I see a Kobe clip, I get so sad. Yeah. I get so sad whenever I see a Kobe clip. All right. What we have here? Emon, backdoor cuts to Jared Smith. Okay. All right. They down by 30. Oh no, they were up by 30. I'm sorry. They were up by 30. JR Smith has another dunk when he did play for the Knicks where he went baseline. I think he went baseline in a round or something like that. Hopefully that's in here because that's the one that's coming to mind when I'm thinking about JR Smith dunks. Oh, come on, Ferg. Get up, Ferg. What you got? Windmill, a ferocious one too. You heard how loud that dunk was? A ferocious one. That's nice. That's nice. Victor O'Deepo was all thick back then. Look, he was so out of shape. All right. Okay. That's what he do though. That's what he do. Russ. Oh, that's a nasty one. That's a nasty one. He's like whenever you see a player float, it feel like he was in there for like three seconds, bro. Oh, man. Yeah. Ziya wants to get that. That was in a, that was in preseason. That was preseason. That was at this game. That was at this game. But you know what? There is another one of Jackson Hayes catching the body at the United Center. That better be on here. Oh, snap. Nico Mele. Don't jump. Come on, rookie. You should have known better. You should have known better. Devante Graham up to Malik Monk low key got a lot of bounce. You may not see it every single night. He's got a few of these type of dunks. You're like, man, where did that come from? Malik Monk. Nasty. Okay. Just show me the replay from two plays ago. That's cool too. That's cool. It wasn't. It was a nice one. I'll see the replay again. I guess that works. Who we going to get on this one? Also. Jama rank clip. No. It's Eric Gordon again. I mean, he is one of those dudes that could be a two time dunk contest champ. That's just length. That's just length.  Off the back. That's a good one.  Oh, yeah. This is after being tapped into him. Oh, man. That man has bounce after ACL tears. Bounce. Oh, speaking of job. We got one. DeMar. Don't try to jump. He whiffed that. He knew better than to jump. He saw the college clips. Oh, yeah. This is a body. That's a body. That's a body for Mr. Spider. Spider. Actually, yeah. Vuce of his jump to the side instead of jumping up with him. More Aaron Gordon. Oh. Oh, a 360 on baseline. Oh, evading all of the traffic. DeMar Murray to himself. Yeah, I remember this one, too. That's a good one. DeMar Murray hit another one that they took back. That better be right here because that was just as impressive as any of the other ones. Another Aaron Gordon. This must be, like, the best thing in the world for him to have a full court, to think of a dunk to do. And he took his time with this one. A very simple 360, if you want to call it that. Because no 360 is easy. Dare Jones Jr. To bam. Wayne meal. My center doing a Wayne meal. Yeah. See, his one meal looked better than Joe Wales because he's smaller than Joe Wales, you know? Uh-oh. Uh-oh, Bron.  Yes. Yes. He had to look at his hand like that. I really just do that. Yes, you did, King. The left hand. The left. Throw it up to AG. He, you saw him? He posed in the air. Take the picture. You know what I'm saying? It happened so fast. That's a body. That's a body for DeMar on MVP. Yeah, yeah. Beep, beep. I just realized he does the same 360 dunk every time. That's the third time we've seen the same 360 dunk. Hold on, Zach. I know you got more. You're repertoire than that. Oh, here's another Malik Monk. Oh, no. Oh, no. Off the back. Is that PJ? No, it's Miles. OK, Miles definitely got bounced. I was like, that can't be PJ. PJ went even in the lead yet. AG again. No, this is Terrence Jones. Terrence Ross, I mean. That's Terrence Ross. Yes. A nasty one. Y'all mean when he dropped 50 in the game? Some of y'all don't remember that y'all too young. Some of y'all are too young. I'm still waiting for that JR Smith dunk to pop up. We got two minutes before this JR Smith dunk. It better pop up. It better pop up. If not, I'm going to search it for y'all. That's how good of a dunk it is. And Beep to himself. Wow. Wow. I've never seen this one before. And that was a late game, too. Dennis Smith Jr. bounce, baby. 360. 360 dunk. OK. All right. Who's the best in-game dunker? Comment down below. Who do you think is the best in-game dunker in the NBA? Not a dunk contest. We talking legitimately in-game. Speaking of it, Derrick Jones Jr. goes so high for this one. Jesus Christ. There's no reason for him to be jumping that high, y'all. Oh, my God. He just spiked that ball. That's how the White Haram won a bunch of dunk contests by not actually dunking, but just spiking it into the rim. Oh, LeBron. I remember this one. This was last season, LeBron, man. I didn't get to get to this game, but yeah. Shout out to LeBron. Oh, same game. Throw it back to me, Josh Hart. LeBron loves to put on a show in Madison Square Garden because it's like the Mecca of NBA basketball and in the United Center because that's what Jordan played. He loves to give a show in those two places. He always does. Y'all remember he was about this close to signing in Chicago too before he went to Miami. That would have been great, right? This is up to KD, yeah. We saw this in a video like two days ago. It's a good one. It's a good one. It definitely is, but I still ain't seen JR Smith. The dunk I can visually see in my brain. Okay. Good lob to AD. Good lob up to AD. That was a cool connection. They were together for, like, a season, season and a half. Yeah, that was a good little connection, man. Oh, big steal. Jaylen Brown playing the passer lane. Slow down. Win meal. At Barclays. I forgot to hit that thing on the top of his head for a long time. AI up to Iggy. Was that Iggy? It's so grainy. I can't even tell. Is that Iggy? That is Iggy. Jesus Christ, Ig. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Brown. It's a long win meal. It's a long win meal, LeBron. Okay. I got to Google it. I Googled it as the first thing that came up. JR Smith brutal dunk. Just two minutes of this. But this is the exact one I'm thinking of. First of all, y'all remember Anthony Bennett was in the league? Because neither do I. Yeah. That's a nasty dunk.  Like, come on. This is back when the Knicks were good and fun. JR Smith, Mellow, Tyson Chandler, Pablo Pigeonias on the court. Did we just watch JR Smith catch bodies? Then no, this is the one. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I think we spent an extra two minutes to watch this video, y'all. I think we spent an extra two minutes to watch this video. I don't know why it's this box around it. I don't know. I don't know why the footage doesn't fit the screen, but we'll make it work. We'll make it work. These are all, like, within a couple of years' spare. That's it. That's all I need. That's all I need. We can watch the remainder of it later. Subscribe, y'all, if you haven't already. Hit that button. I'm expecting to see a bunch of new subscribers today.


You're talking about Pope Francis the year of mercy. What is this year of mercy? How do we live it? And we've been examining the theme of mercy a lot through the gospel of Luke. But I want to share with you a fun story from an encounter I had with with Pope Francis just a few months ago. I've gone to Rome many times leading many pilgrimages and in this particular year we got up to the front row for the papal audience on the Wednesday, which often happens with our group. And I had my nine-year-old son with me, little Carl, and he came along on the pilgrimage.  And the next thing I know these Swiss guards come over, grab Carl, and put him over here in the Pope mobile, and then the Pope goes back and kind of taps him on the head, gives him a little kiss, and I thought, oh wow, I mean I've seen him take babies before, I've never seen him take a nine-year-old, but okay, that's kind of nice. And then all of a sudden the Pope mobile drives away with Carl. This is supposed to be the year of mercy, and the Pope just kidnapped my son. And he's driving around for like 20 minutes all around St. Peter's Square, and I'm wondering, how am I ever going to see Carl back? So eventually he dropped him off in the front, and Carl's coming back and he's walking along the front, and all these people from all these different countries are just giving him high-fives as he's going down the line. So amazing things happen, I guess, in the year of mercy. You know, one really big area of mercy I'm hoping the graces will overflow and touch my heart, is I'm a Cubs fan. And this morning I woke up at 3.45 in the morning, and I, you know, to catch a six o'clock flight out of Denver, and it was about a month ago I realized that my assistant booked the flight through Chicago, and my folks have been trying to have my boys come out and visit. I'm from Chicago where we originally, and so we schemed that I would take Carl and Carl and Luke, and they'd come with me, and they would come on the plane, and then when we land in Chicago I drop them off, you know, through security, wave to my mom on the other side of security, and then I'm going to meet up with them Saturday night when I fly back on my way back, and then Sunday we're going to go to Wrigley Field.  The only difference between Catholic suffering and Cubs suffering is that Catholic suffering is redemptive. Cubs suffering is just pointless, but we're not here to talk about the Cubs, we're here to talk about the year of mercy, and as I think about this, you know, what is mercy? When I think about mercy I'm reminded of that little kids game. Do you know that kids game of mercy where two children may put their hands together like this, and it becomes a tournament of strength, and one tries to overpower the other one and break the arm of the other one, and the only way the game ends is if the weaker child cries out, mercy! And as a kid growing up, that's what I thought God's mercy was all about.  That was kind of the, you know, skewed concept I had of mercy, and sadly I think many people have that, that they think mercy is just about one powerful person just pardoning a weaker person saying, well, okay, I'll overlook what you did and I'll let you get by and I'll just declare you innocent. But that's not a Catholic understanding of mercy. It's certainly not a biblical understanding of mercy. Mercy is much more an expression of God's love for us. The God who is love created us freely out of love. He created us so that we can participate in His love, and even though we have turned away from Him over and over again in many thousands of small ways and some big ways, even though we turn away from Him, He constantly seeks us out because He's so madly in love with us.  You are drunk with love. He loved us so much He sent His own Son to die for us and to restore us to unity with Him. He gave us the church. He gave us the teachings. He gave us the sacraments, and He wants to constantly go out and touch as many souls as possible with His mercy. You see that in Jesus' own public ministry, don't we? He's constantly going out. He's moving from one village to the next, from one person to the next, going to all the dark corners of Israel, all of those that were the outcasts, all those that were lonely, all those that were suffering doing as much as He can because He just wants to be at one with us. He is so driven by His love. And it's that great mercy of God that Pope Francis is drawing our attention to in this particular year of mercy. Now, Pope Francis, when asked, why this year? Why is this year a year of mercy? He said this. He said, hours is a time of mercy. Hours is a time of mercy. He said, yes, I believe that this is a time of mercy. The church is showing her maternal side, her motherly face to a humanity that is wounded. She does not wait for the wounded to knock on her doors. She looks for them on the streets. She gathers them in. She embraces them and takes care of them and makes them feel loved. Now, why is this such a time of mercy? He mentioned something about humanity being wounded. And I want to elaborate on that. In many of his writings, Pope Francis has talked about this idea of a wounded humanity. Why is humanity wounded? Listen to what he says. Humanity is wounded, deeply wounded. Either it does not know how to cure its wounds, or it believes that it's not possible to cure them. And it's not just a question of social ills or people wounded by poverty. Relativism wounds people. All things seem equal. All things appear the same. Now, let's think about this for a moment. The secular modern world has turned away from truth, turned away from the gospel, turned away from traditional values. We can't even get bathrooms right anymore. As we've turned away from truth and embraced this relativism, that there's no truth. Everyone just does whatever they want. There's no right or wrong. It's not just that we're no longer getting religious teachings right. We can't even get the basics of human life right. As Pope Benedict often said, when we turn away from these gospel values and traditional values, we lose the art of living. We no longer know how to live. Isn't that true? If there's no right or wrong and we just tell everyone, just do whatever you want, then we don't live marriage well. We see marriages suffering so much. Think about how many people have been wounded in their broken marriages. We don't live family life well. And so, so many people wounded because of broken family life. Young people don't know how to live dating relationships well. They don't know how to live out their sexuality in a proper way. And so, they experience great pain, the great heartache, great insecurity, feeling used, disillusioned about whether they can ever find a lasting love. Is marriage even possible? Humanity is deeply wounded. We don't know how to live friendship, live in community, care for the poor, care for those in need. Humanity is wounded, deeply wounded, Pope Francis says. And that's why he's calling on a year of mercy so that we can go out into the world with the truth and the love of Jesus Christ. In the end, this is all a part of Pope Francis' desire for evangelization, to bring souls closer to Jesus Christ and to the fullness of the Catholic Church. But we have to realize that we can't just go out with the truths of the faith. The truths of the faith always have to be accompanied by mercy. You know, one of Pope Francis' favorite images for the church is that of a field hospital, a hospital out on a battlefield. And when you're out on a battlefield, you've got somebody who has a severe injury. You know, they've been shot in the chest. They have a ruptured spleen. When these seriously injured people come into the field hospital, the doctor doesn't go up and say, hey, I think we're going to need to talk about your cholesterol level. You know, oh, I think we need to talk about your blood sugar level. And how much are you exercising? Can we talk about your diet? No, those are important things, right? Don't get me wrong. But you've got to deal with the most urgent matters first. And Pope Francis says we need to do the same thing when we're talking to people from our secular, relativistic culture. That we may be talking about some very important issue, like the definition of marriage or contraception or whatever the issue is, very important issues. But we ought to realize that behind those issues, there's also a person that very likely is deeply wounded by the culture. They don't know God's love. They don't know how merciful God is, how willing God wants to forgive them, how much God wants to help them in their lives. And we've got to address the most urgent matters first. And if they don't know the story of God's love, then it's going to be very difficult for them to make sense out of all these other important moral issues that are a direct consequence of that story. But if they don't know the heart of the gospel, then they're not really going to listen to us well. I remember talking to my asthma doctor recently. She was asking me about this image of the field hospital. And I said, it's kind of like this. You know, let's say there's some kid, one patient of yours, who's severely allergic to dogs. They get a really bad asthmatic attack if they play with dogs. And let's say this little boy happens one day to play with a really furry dog, has a horrendous asthmatic attack, can't breathe. They have to rush him to the ambulance to the hospital. When he comes in, is the first thing you're going to say to him, hey, don't you know you're not supposed to be talking to dogs?  No. You've got to get the kid breathing first. You get the kid breathing then. Then we can talk about the other things. And so Pope Francis in this year of mercy is drawing our attention to mercy so that we can go out to the world more effectively with mercy. And what I want to do in our short time together is offer you a few practical ways to put the year of mercy into your life so that we can be more effective witnesses to the fullness of the gospel and sharing the truth and the mercy of Jesus Christ to a world that desperately needs it. So can we start with a Hail Mary before we jump in? Let's ask Mary's intercession for us in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death, amen. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. So the context of where I want to go, I want you to see the end, the telos, the main goal here. It's evangelization. It's to bring souls to the fullness of the truth, the fullness of the gospel, Jesus Christ and his church. But to do that, we're going to step back from the culture and look within because sometimes we think about this year of mercy, well, oh wow, there's so many troubles in the world and the world needs mercy. And that's true, but we can look at it, the year of mercy detached. We say, oh yeah, we need mercy given what's happened in France and Germany recently. The world needs mercy or we see what's happening in the Middle East. The world needs mercy or what happened in Orlando or Dallas or Baton Rouge. Our country needs mercy and we see what's going on. The culture is falling apart. The culture needs mercy. And we can look at it like that, detached, but what I want us to do is get really personal here and see that you know who needs mercy first? Me. I want us to look into our own selves because we're never going to be effective witnesses to God's love and mercy and truth unless we've encountered it profoundly ourselves. So let's take a look at that aspect of mercy for ourselves. Pope Francis is calling us to have a renewed encounter with Christ's mercy, a renewed encounter with Christ's mercy. I think this is important for those of us that are especially, we're very on fire about our faith and we can sometimes forget this. Again, we can often think, yeah, well those people out there, Planned Parenthood, they need mercy and all these other groups need mercy. But we can often forget how much we really need mercy. And I can understand that because look, if we're faithful Catholics, you know, if we believe in God, just the fact that if we believe in God, you know, wow, we stand out. Our faith is important to us. We stand out in our culture. And I could actually just say, wow, you know, I go to church on Sunday. Now I'm really part of the elite, you know, I'm really religious. You know, I go to church on Sunday. And not only that, guess what? I believe all the church's teachings. I'm Orthodox. Whoa, now you're putting yourself in the tiny, you know, small percentile of people out in the universe right now. You know, so I believe all the church's teachings and I strive to follow them and I'm involved in my parish and we can kind of pat ourselves on the back saying, I'm doing a lot better than a lot of people out there. I mean, those people, they really need mercy out there. I mean, I know I need mercy too, but you know, but I'm not as bad as all of them. You know, I'm pretty good because I follow all the rules. You know, I'm a pretty good Catholic. And we can fall into this trap, can't we? But let's just think about that. Just simply following the rules, being Orthodox, it's absolutely essential. But is that enough? Is that enough?  What if I told you that? I'm an amazing basketball player. And you said, well, Ted Sri, tell me, what makes you a great basketball player? And I said, because I follow all the rules. I'm really good at following the rules. I don't go out of bounds. I don't double dribble. I don't travel with the ball. I'm an amazing LeBron would want me on his team. You say, no way. I mean, it's good. Don't get right. You know, you need to follow the rules. That's important, right? It's absolutely essential. But in the end, that's just permission to play. That's just the starting point. If you don't have the skills of dribbling, shooting, boxing out, all these kinds of things, you're not going to be a great basketball player. And the same is true. We've got to follow the Ten Commandments. We have to believe what the Catechism teaches. We have to follow the church. Absolutely. But that's just the beginning. The Christian life isn't just about following the rules. It's about following Jesus Christ and imitating Him. How are we growing in our imitation of Christ taking on His qualities, His virtues, striving for holiness? That's what the Christian life is all about. And when I, if I'm comparing myself just to people out there in the world, that's not the standard. The standard's right here. And all I do is have to take one glance there and say, I need a lot of mercy. I need a lot of mercy. It reminds me of my daughter, Josephine. I think I might have shared this story last year with you a bit, because it happened just last summer around this time.  And one day we left her with a babysitter and there were other kids that were over and she was piling on the other kids, getting a little rough with them. And the babysitter just happened to say, Josephine, don't be so rough. And then my daughter jumped out of the pile really quick. The babysitter told her, she jumped out and went like this. And the babysitter said, is everything okay, Josephine? She goes, I'm really trying to be good. And the babysitter just kind of smiled and said, how's it going for you? And she just almost started to cry and said, it's really hard. Isn't that true though, for us, if we're really striving to be good? It's not about, oh, I went to church and I believe the things in the catechism. I'm pro-life, I'm pro-marriage. Yeah, great. But are we striving to be good? Are we really trying to imitate Christ?  Now, when some of the things that keep us from recognizing our need for God isn't just following rules and kind of holding onto that as our security blanket, but it's also sometimes we're just afraid to change. We're afraid to admit how much we need God's help. We don't want to have to change our lives. We kind of like coasting as we are. So our conscious, do you ever have your conscience kind of tell you like, ooh, maybe I shouldn't have said that to my spouse that way? Or, oh, maybe I didn't handle that situation with my child the best way. Or maybe I shouldn't be looking at this on the screen. Or maybe I should have handled this situation better with my colleagues at work. You know what I'm talking about? You kind of get your conscious, kind of just the Lord knocking on the door of your heart, getting you to think about something. And what do most of us do when the voice of conscious comes up? Do we listen to it? Or do we suppress it? See, our modern world wants us to suppress our conscience. Our modern world says, hey, don't feel guilty. Guilty is a bad thing. Guilt, that's just a bad Christian thing. You Catholics are all caught up in guilt. We shouldn't be guilty. We all have little mistakes, but we should just feel good about ourselves and even hug our shadow and everything should be fine. So just don't feel guilty. Guilt is a bad thing. But actually, we have to say, no, guilt is something good. When you feel guilty over something that you've done that's wrong, that's actually a good thing. What that means is there's some good part of me that doesn't resonate with the bad thing I just did. If I'm just too short with my wife, I didn't treat her well in a certain exchange and then I feel badly about afterwards, that's a really good thing. That means there's a good part of me that didn't like the bad thing I just did. But if I didn't have that guilty feeling and I treated my wife horribly and I like it, that's actually a really bad thing.  And I don't want to be that. So we want to let that good voice. We want to let that speak, let that come out. You know, too often what we do is we tend to, many people we tend to rationalize our sins and just justify, oh, it's okay, it's not that big of a deal or we make excuses for ourselves or we blame other people for our problems or we just distract ourselves, keep us really, really busy and constantly on our phones so we don't have to stop and think about our lives and where we're going. But that voice of conscience is still there. We want that voice to come out. Let's take time. If you sense the Lord touching your heart saying, you're struggling here or I want this to change, let's let Him speak. And that requires humility. That's what we're really talking about in this first point. That recognition of our need for God's help, our need for God's mercy, that's humility. And I mentioned this in the talk earlier today. You know, we all talk about humility, right? We all know about humility. If I give you all a quiz, if I give you a quiz right now and the quiz question was, do you need God's help in your life? Do you need God's mercy? What are you all going to say? I bet every one of you are going to say yes on a quiz. And that's good. But that's what I like to call intellectual humility. But experiential humility, the humility that the saints write about is much more profound. It's not just, oh, yeah, I know I'm a sinner and I have concupiscence and I make mistakes and I need God's mercy, I need confession. That's just all up here. I'm talking about at the core of our being, are we utterly convinced of how much we need God in his help moment by moment? I mentioned this afternoon in my workshop about how St. John, in John's Gospel, do you remember what Jesus says about without him how much we can do? Do you remember? He says, without me, you can do about 50%. Is that what Jesus says? He says, without me, you can do nothing. Are you convinced of that? I mean, we all know that. Again, if I give you a quiz, do Jesus say that? Yeah, do you agree with that? Yes, you get it right. But are you convinced of it? I mean, when you walk into your workplace, do you have that attitude? Jesus, I give you my work today, help me to give the best of myself in my work. Whether I'm working at the church or working at a hospital or working in a business office, am I asking for his help in my life? Or wake up in the morning, I'm doing my morning for Jesus, I need you to help me to serve my wife today, help me to be the best husband I could be for her today. Jesus, I don't know how to handle the situation with my teenager, I don't know how to handle the situation with my top. Jesus, help me to be the dad I need to be for them. Do we have that attitude? Sometimes we just go through life, I know I need God, but I'm not turning to him, begging for his help, moment by moment, day by day. And when the good Lord sees us just kind of trying to do it all on our own, guess what he does? He lets us go. And we'll only go so far. But the saints, the great souls that are utterly humble, that recognize how much they're dependent on the Lord, those are the ones that God does great things in and through. And in this year of mercy, Pope Francis is challenging all of us, especially those of us within the fold, those of us who are part of the convinced minority, as Pope Benedict would say, of the faithful Catholics. He's challenging us to renew our own encounter with mercy and recognize how much we need God's help. We have so many areas we need to grow in. We need his forgiveness. We need to save and grace in our lives. And that leads now to our second point that we can take away. And that is the actual encounter with mercy. So if we recognize we need God's mercy, now we need to experience it. I want to talk about two pillars of mercy, two pillars of mercy. On one hand, there's forgiveness. And I think this is what most people associate mercy with, that they think of someone who's merciful, that they're very forgiving. They will forgive you. And that's an important point, that we can be forgiven. And this is good news for us first and foremost. It's also incredibly good news for people out in the world. I want to do a little exercise right now, okay?  And I want you to think about some interesting sin. Maybe the sin, you think it's your worst sin, maybe it's something you did a long, long time ago, or maybe it's something you're struggling with right now. Just think about what that is, and then keep your eyes closed.  How would you feel? Maybe you'd feel just afraid. What are people going to think of me? What does this mean for my life now? Maybe you'd feel just totally embarrassed. Maybe you'd feel angry, angry at how it got out, angry that the way other people are looking at you, you're probably angry at yourself, maybe you're self-condemning. And so just imagine this moment and then all of a sudden in the midst of this shame and fear and frustration, Jesus comes and sits right next to you. He holds your hand. He looks you in the eye and he says, I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more. You can open your eyes because you know that story, don't you? That's the story from John's Gospel, chapter 8, the woman caught in adultery. All of a sudden thrown before the Jewish leaders and Jesus publicly shamed. She was probably experiencing all those kinds of emotions of fear, embarrassment, anger, and probably a lot of self-condemnation. Before anyone was throwing stones at her, she was probably throwing stones at herself. And right at that moment, Jesus came and said, I forgive you. This is the love of God. This is how merciful he really is. And he wants to bestow that mercy upon all of us, especially in the sacrament of confession. And he wants it for us first and foremost, but there are so many people out there that really think that their lives can never change, that they're defined by whatever things they've done in their life and what they're doing now, and that they're unforgivable, unlovable, and we need to preach the good news that they can get a fresh start in life just like that woman in John 8 did. Now, I mentioned I do pilgrimage to Rome. One thing I like to do is show people something in St. Peter's Basilica. If you look at the main altar off to the right, there's this section where all these confessions are heard in all these different languages. You can go to confession in German, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and practically every day hundreds of pilgrims come from all over the world to confess their sins in this part of the basilica. And after you leave this area and you're walking back into the main part of the basilica, there's this big mosaic depiction of a scene from the Gospels. It's the story of when Peter goes out on the boat and starts walking toward Jesus. Do you remember that on the Sea of Galilee? They're at night, they see Jesus coming and Peter starts walking toward him, and it's all exciting because he's walking on the water toward Jesus, but then do you remember what happens? He takes his eyes off of Christ and he's distracted by the wind and the storm and he starts to sink and he's desperately crying out to Jesus, Lord, save me! And Jesus is reaching out to him and he says, he brings him back into the boat. Why is that image there where all the confessions are heard? It's because that story is very much about what happens in confession. That similarly in our own lives when we take our eyes off of Christ then our lives, we start to sink. We're not on track anymore, but all we have to do is reach out to Jesus and say, Lord, save me! And you know what Jesus does in the Sacrament Confession? He says, it's about time you confess that sin. It's been 30 years I've been sitting here waiting for you. No, no, he's there because he's not there to condemn. His mercy is always reaching out to him. He just wants us to turn back to him. And so no matter what you may have done or no matter what your children may have done or your grandchildren or your friends or your coworkers, we have to know that no matter what we've done no matter how many times we've done it no matter how long we've been away Jesus is waiting for us in this great sacrament. He just wants to restore us. But if that's all you knew about confession in this year of mercy you'd really be missing out on a lot because forgiveness is only one aspect of mercy. There's a whole other aspect that a lot of people don't talk about. There's a whole other aspect of mercy that a lot of people don't care of that you encounter in the sacrament of reconciliation and that is the healing power of Jesus Christ that is made manifest there. All throughout his public ministry you see Jesus forgiving people's sins but he's giving sight to the blind he's raising the dead making the deaf be able to hear the paralyzed walk and that same Jesus wants to do the same thing with us he doesn't just want to pardon us he wants to heal us he wants to heal us of our own spiritual blindness he wants to make us be able to hear him more and those areas of our lives where we feel paralyzed, unable to change he wants to make us walk again and whatever is dying in our souls he wants to come and raise that's the Jesus we encounter in the sacrament. Pope Francis said too many times we Catholics we treat confession like the dry cleaner I love that image we treat the confessional like the dry cleaner you get a little stain on your shirt you go bring it to the dry cleaner and the dry cleaner removes the stain that's what we think confession is about I get a little stain on my soul I sinned and now nice and clean granted we are forgiven there is an aspect of that Pope Francis highlights a very important truth that our sins are not just a stain on our soul they're a deep wound we cultivate bad habits and Jesus doesn't want to just remove the stain he wants to get to the root problem he wants to heal us Jesus wants to come not just as a judge and pardon us he wants to come as a physician and he wants to heal us so whatever you may be struggling with maybe there is some addiction you struggle with maybe you lose your temper a lot maybe there is someone you just feel like I just can't forgive them or maybe you find yourself judging people whatever the issue you might have go to Jesus in this year of mercy especially in the sacrament confession and confess it not just to be forgiven but to beg for his mercy to change your heart so that you can live ever more like him now I want to move to another aspect of mercy and that is how we treat the people around us our neighbor how do you respond when you notice someone else's faults you notice they didn't go to Mass again this week wow she's in a mood today you know they're not married and I think they're living together oh he voted for that political candidate how do you respond when you notice other people's weaknesses or faults certain actions you know many times what we do is we set ourselves up as a judge we set ourselves up as a judge we see a certain fact a certain little point, a data point and then we just assume oh this is how it is but Pope Francis and many of the great saints have been writing about how we often will see just certain facts but we don't necessarily see the whole story we don't see the whole truth it reminds me of a true story a professional who was raised Catholic but was no longer practicing her face she wasn't going to church on Sunday but she had a couple of Catholics that she worked with at this company and they invited her to this women's group Bible study that they were doing and she liked going to the Bible study she was good friends with the people and liked what she was learning and the women in the Bible study they would invite her to Mass and she didn't come but they were always very welcoming to her and as soon as confession came up this young woman just body language just started closing up and she was normally very outgoing she didn't say a word that Bible study as soon as it ended she said I got to go and they shouldn't hang out for the fellowship afterwards and everyone's wondering what happened the Bible study leader felt awful she went to bed that night with a stomach ache thinking did I say something wrong we've been trying to reach out to her what happened and so from the outside it just looked like well here's this girl she's got a problem but the next morning the young girl called the Bible study leader and said hey I'm really sorry I know everyone's probably wondering why I left so abruptly but I gotta be honest that whole confession thing just really hit me hard you all know I haven't been to church in a long time and I don't go to Mass the last time I ever stepped foot in a Catholic church was in high school at my father's funeral and then she just pauses she gets a little teary and she says I just haven't been able to forgive God for taking away my dad all these years and she went on and threw some tears just said but you all have been just so kind to me and such good friends and you've shown me what the faith is really about and I want to set things right with God I heard you guys say that there's confessions at the church can you tell me when does that happen how does that work so it's every Saturday and then she says I want to go this Saturday do you think you and all the other women in the study would come with me to the church to be there with me at that moment when I come back to the church and I share that story because I've heard so many stories like this where you just see a little data point young girl not going to church and you just see that backed but you don't see the whole story now the whole story of the suffering that she went through losing her father doesn't take away there's a real problem she really needs to go to church she should have never stopped going to church but all of a sudden you look at the situation a little bit differently you can look at it with more compassion a little more empathy and realize part of the issue is addressing that her sorrow over losing her father so our love for our neighbor has to always be that of a spirit of compassion and mercy and not quickly setting herself up as a judge St. Catherine of Siena struggled with this by the way she often was really good at noticing people's faults especially priests and she thought she was just really gifted at reading human nature until God one day confronted her and said you know Catherine all those insights you're getting about other people's weaknesses those insights aren't coming from me they're coming from the devil so God told her the devil is allowing you to notice their faults to catch them just at that one moment so that instead of responding to their suffering with compassion you set yourself as a judge so Catherine learned very quickly and she wrote a lot about how we should always have great compassion on others and assume the best and she always said you know if anything just say well there go why I would do the same thing unless grace held me up and to recognize we all have our own weaknesses I think this is a huge point to take away this is something Saint Bernard of Clairvaux mentions is that we can't really have compassion on the people who annoy us the frustrations we experience in our parish or our workplace or our family when they hurt us even we can't have compassion on them until we recognize our own sins and our own weaknesses you know if we tend to be people that are critical and judgmental we struggle with that even if we don't say it but we have it in our head it's often times because we haven't followed step one or two that we talked about tonight we haven't really recognized our own weakness and how much God needs to be merciful on me I haven't experienced God's own mercy with my life I truly experienced how patient and gentle God is with me and I truly know what a mess I am then when I see someone else doing other things and promoting bad things in the culture I'm less likely to just look at them and look down on them I see well he's been so patient with me I'd probably do worse if it wasn't for my relationship with Christ this is what Saint Bernard of Clairvaux says listen the sound person feels the sick ones pains it is fellow sufferers that readily feel compassion for the sick and the hungry you will never have real mercy for the failings of another until you know and realize that you have the same failings in your own soul in other words maybe I haven't committed adultery or maybe I'm not looking at pornography like other people but maybe I struggle sometimes with my glances and purity of heart so I might not have the exact same thing but I have something of that in me or maybe I'm not pro-abortion but how much do I actually go out and live in solidarity with the weakest members of society and care for people that are suffering that are lonely and that are poor again it's much more severe to promote abortion but John Paul II pointed out it's that same individualistic spirit that leads individuals to just not care for others in great need that same attitude that neglects the poor is the attitude that builds the culture of death in promoting abortion that we don't want to care for those that need our attention the most so what have we seen so far we need to understand that we need God's mercy secondly we need to experience it experience his forgiveness and his healing power and if we do truly experience God's patience his gentleness his compassion and mercy with me and we experience his healing power in my own life if that happens then when I'm looking at my neighbor I'm going to tend to be more gentle and compassionate with them as well and now we go to a fourth step and now we're moving toward evangelization now we go out and we give witness to the love of Jesus Christ that we have experienced ourselves how do we do this I'm going to talk about two ways briefly one is to encounter the poor Pope Francis has drawn particular attention to service of the poor in his pontificate and in this year of mercy do we go out and really serve the poor and I have to be honest for me in my own life I know I've said well I'm a theologian I'm doing all this great work I think every state of life will be different every individual will be different but all of us are called to do something to have contact with those in great needs Pope Francis once said he challenged us to do a lot more than just give money to do a lot more than just write checks he once was addressing a group of people and he said do you give alms I said yeah we give alms he says do you look them in the eye when you give alms oh you know I just throw them the coins he says then you haven't really encountered them do you give alms yeah father we give alms do you touch them do you talk to the poor oh no we just give them money then you haven't really encountered them Pope Francis is calling us to not just give money but to encounter the poor to live a little bit in solidarity with them so that we grow in love Pope Benedict says when we do this when I go out and I actually I've seen the poor I've got some contact with them I'm not just helping this poor man's condition not just helping him clean his house or helping serve him some food and put food in his belly or handing him some money there's a change that's happening on the outside indeed he has a nicer house he has more food or he has some more cash there's a change happening out there but Pope Benedict said there's a change that happens in here when we do that that we who've encountered Christ's own love want to go out and share that love with those in need that's a true mark of a faithful Christian Pope Francis says this is one of the key marks of orthodoxy in the early church a key mark of Catholic identity in the early church when Saint Paul was checking is my gospel message okay can I go off to the Gentiles and say amen go for it just make sure you do one thing care for the poor and as Paul sets up all these communities around Asia Minor and into Greece ultimately in Rome you get all these Christian communities that are living a counter cultural lifestyle very different from the pagan hedonistic self centeredness of the world around them and so when Paul and his communities are serving the poor other Christians or the people in pagan Rome are looking at wow we've never seen anything like that and Pope Francis says we live in a similar time of an individualistic hedonistic age that is just centered on myself my own pleasure my own entertainment my own comfort and now is the time that Christians more than ever need to give a counter cultural prophetic witness to care for the poor now whether that means you go help at a soup kitchen or you go visit a nursing home you help someone that you know in your own community a neighbor a widow next door whatever it is it's gonna look differently for all of us but I think we can all be challenged to give a little more of ourselves personally to those in need last point is not just the corporal works of mercy but we need to also share our faith you can think of this as the spiritual works of mercy and that's what this is ultimately leading to you see if we've truly encountered Christ then we just want to share him with others and it's not just I'm sharing some ideas about him but if I've truly encountered his love and patience and his saving help his grace healing me in my own life then that's just good news I want to share with others but I meet so many Catholics that say oh I'm just not so sure how to do that I don't know what to do I don't know how to say it I'm not a theologian I'm afraid guess what this isn't that hard this isn't rocket science Jesus there's gospel stories all the time about people who encounter Christ and then they go off and tell others about it like you know the story of the Samaritan woman remember her she has a very colored past all these different husbands and Jesus comes to her and she goes through a conversion she comes to believe in Jesus as the Messiah she goes to her community her other Samaritans and she starts telling them about Jesus and she's a successful evangelist these Samaritans come to believe in Jesus as the savior of the world through her own witness isn't she incredible do you know why she was such an effective witness to the gospel message it's because on her way back to her village she stopped at the diocesan office for that workshop on evangelization it's because she encountered Jesus experienced something good and just wanted to share it now don't get me wrong that workshop or further studies all those things make you better you get more effective but if you experience something good you want to share it so let me ask how many of you have ever seen a good movie in the last year or two did you tell anyone about the movie how did you do that that's amazing do you have a masters in film criticism did you study with Roger I want to meet you that's amazing how many of you married here any married folks here how many of you could say something wonderful about your wife your spouse yeah do you have like a masters in marriage theology how did you do that that's amazing now when you experience something good you just want to share it with other people and it's the same thing with the gospel if you really encounter Jesus and experienced his mercy in your life which is forgiveness but also he's healing grace to change you to bring you to a happier life then that's just good news if you're convinced that a relationship with Christ and the Catholic church makes a difference in your life then you can share that with other people and you don't have to be an expert and this is where Pope Francis and John Paul II often talked about the ministry of accompaniment if you just love people whether it's your niece or your grandson or your friend at work whatever it is and you're accompanying them in life you're not just coming in with hi I'm here to give you Catholic truth but no you're here to just love them and you're involved in their life and you're asking questions many of them have never had people ask questions about their life I can remember when I was a young college student a seminarian in my diocese took me out to breakfast but I remember he just asked me a simple question we're just catching up so Ted tell me are you happy I never had anyone ask me that question so yeah I'm happy grades are going well I got a girlfriend I'm playing in a band at college and yeah things are happy but that question haunted me and all that day I kept wondering am I really happy and then for the next several weeks I just kept wondering am I really happy and then I realized on the outside had a lot of good things going on again good grades, girlfriend, friends all this nice social life but deep on the inside while I was Catholic and going to church Jesus wasn't first and there was a lot of insecurity a lot of fear I wasn't really happy and that question led me to ask deeper questions about where my life was going and it wasn't until eventually saying no I don't want Jesus to be a part of my life but then things started to go in the right direction at a deeper profound level have the confidence that if people aren't put in Christ first in their life just know their hearts are restless as St. Augustine says they just are no matter how confident they seem how disregarding a religion they might seem just know the truth their hearts are restless until they rest in God now going out and talking about the faith that's just getting the starters accompanying them, asking questions sharing about your own in that context when they start bringing up something a question about life then you could share something from the faith that made a difference for you but at some point you're going to have to be ready though for the challenges that the culture is raising about the faith today because I hear from so many parents the same kind of story something about I raised my kids Catholic I sent them to Catholic schools and then they got into high school and they start wondering hey mom why do I need a church I believe in God I'm a good person why do I need a church then they start saying things like I don't need religion I could just be spiritual then they go off to college and they come home one spring break and say why is the Catholic church so judgmental why is it so critical of all these other views and ways of life we should just be tolerant and just all coexist then they graduate and they get married they get a job find a boyfriend or girlfriend then they start living together and mom and dad say hey did you ever think about getting married well who needs marriage why bother we got a job we like each other we get along why do we need some certificate from a church this is the culture we live in today and we need to be equipped to answer those questions eventually maybe not on the first round but eventually we've got to be able to answer those deeper questions that are in the culture but first and foremost we've got to be able to encounter God's mercy in our own lives so that we can just have a spirit of his mercy and love with the people around us loving our neighbor well and then give a witness in our care for those in great need and then most of all give a witness to our own faith so we can be more effective in evangelization we're out of time I wish I could I wanted to get into a couple more I wanted to answer some of those questions I just threw out there about why do I need a church why do we talk about morality but I'll just defer you to this book that I wrote here called The Love Unveiled the Catholic Faith Explained where it's a walk through the faith that goes through those questions if you want an article that's based on my talk today I wrote an article actually for Franciscan University for their catechetical journal it's called Living the Year of Mercy it's on my website which is just my name EdwardSiri.com it's on my Facebook page for all of you so you can just take that it's for free share that with anyone that would be helpful with