In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence.

I ask your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother St. Joseph, my father, and Lord, my guardian angel, and deceit form. Our topic of conversation, that is intimately linked with the Blessed Sacrament and our Christian vocation to strive for holiness to be centered on Christ,

is intimately linked with this third person of the Blessed

Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

And that is my topic, devotion to the Holy Spirit.

And the second topic, which is also everything's related to the Holy Spirit, is on St.

Jose Maria, which the other priest will give.

But to be a saint, it's the work of the Holy Spirit.

And how do we look at this?

Well, maybe when you think of the Holy Spirit, you think of a contrast that the apostles were quite a motley crew pre-Pentecost.

You have one apostle who throws a conversion party with his buddies and his loose women friends.

That's Matthew, who will eventually become St. Matthew.

And he was considered a despicable character, the worst kind of character you could imagine,

because he extorted money on behalf of the Gentiles.

And when you were Jewish in those days, and you hung out with Gentiles, you were very impure.

And so he was accused of treason. But he had enough connections with the Romans

that if you didn't pay a little extra tax to him, you would pay with harassment, maybe physical working over, and maybe in severe cases loss of life.

And that's why the Pharisee compared himself or contrasted himself with the publican who was a murderer, a adulterer, thief.

And sorry to say that those adjectives applied probably to Matthew. And when he threw his conversion party,

the Pharisees were totally scandalized because Jesus was at the party and reminded Jesus

...