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 the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My immaculate Mother St. Joseph, my Father, and Lord, my guardian angel,

into seat forth.

With your permission, Lord Jesus Christ, truly present with us in the Blessed Sacrament.

Lord, we come here to be a little bit more centered on you. After long days' work, with natural fatigue setting in, you want this special time of reflection

and prayer. And our Lord sees that. We ask that

question, and we are at liberty to put words in Jesus' mouth. That's the purpose of the gospel.

Jesus is totally present here, but not in the visible way he was in his public life,

but the same Jesus is here. We deal with him through faith. His presence goes beyond our

experience, beyond our sensible capacity, beyond our understanding, but he reveals and gives

us this power to believe that we know he's there. And we put the words of the gospel in

his mouth. One of the purposes of the gospel is to allow the Eucharist to speak to us.

And we read, and he said to all, not a select few to all. If anyone wishes to come after me, well, obviously we're here. We're basically here because we want to follow him.

And probably someone asked the question, what must we do to follow you? He gives us two conditions, at least in this case.

The second condition probably set everybody on edge,

because when we hear the word cross,

doesn't have nearly the same implications and connotations as it did in that ancient world where that kind of execution

...