Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Holy Spirit

  • Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You know, I really don’t think we depend on the Holy Spirit as much as we should. I mean, the Spirit is one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity and has all power and authority as God. Yet, I think, we often shelve the Holy Spirit after Confirmation and maybe dust him off every Pentecost. Which is sad, because, as we know, the Holy Spirit is a gift Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, a gift given to each of us at our Baptism and Confirmation, so that we might have the grace we need to live our lives of faith.

    We also believe that the Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets, like Ezekiel, from whom we have been hearing in the first reading the past week or so. He is preaching to a people whose piety has dried up and who have mostly turned away from God. But even that dryness is no match for the Holy Spirit, who can speak to their dry bones and bring them to life and vitality.

    I think that’s good news for us, because we all go through times when our spiritual lives are a little like those dry bones. Times when we seem to be going through the motions in prayer, not sure if it’s having any effect on those for whom we are praying, or even on us ourselves. Maybe for one reason or another, we have gotten off the path and our spiritual lives have been left behind. Whatever it is that causes the dryness, it seems like most of us have that issue at one point or another.

    So it’s important to remember that the Holy Spirit is our Advocate in those times (and really all through our lives). When we feel like we are spiritually spinning our wheels, we need to turn to the Spirit and call on the Spirit’s breath of life. It is in the Holy Spirit that the Psalmist sings:

    Let them give thanks to the LORD for his mercy
    and his wondrous deeds to the children of men,
    Because he satisfied the longing soul
    and filled the hungry soul with good things.

  • The Solemnity of Pentecost

    The Solemnity of Pentecost

    Words contain a lot of power.  We know that well, because sometimes we say the wrong things, or these days, text the wrong things, and we see how it upsets people we love.  And equally we experience the power of someone saying just the right thing at the right time and we see how that expression of love changes everything.  Words can convey a range of emotions from love to hate, and everything in between.  Words can start an argument, but the right words can diffuse a really bad situation.  We’ve seen it so many times.

    Most of us receive the gift of speech at birth, and come into it during our childhood.  We develop the gift of speech throughout our lives, perhaps learning foreign languages, or become skilled speakers.  Speech is crucial to living in society.  Speech allows us to communicate with others, to develop relationships with them, and to understand their story.  But sometimes speech is used to demean others, to break relationship and marginalize them.  We have to be careful, really careful, how we use our gift of speech.

    But the gift of speech can be divisive. Just as in the book of Genesis, the gift of speech was confused so that the people wouldn’t think they could overtake God, so we sometimes use speech to divide. Often, people will speak in another language just so people around them won’t understand. But even worse than that, we use language to label others or perpetuate stereotypes or put others down. We use language to argue and cause political division to the detriment of the common good. We use language to argue with family members such that communication ceases and relationships are broken. Language, a gift that is meant to unite us, can be abused so very easily and cause division that is not God’s will.

    Our speaking needs to be done in the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to say anything really good.  The only way that we can say “Jesus is Lord,” as Saint Paul tells us, is by the Holy Spirit.  The only way that we can witness to the faith, is by the Holy Spirit.  That was true of the first Apostles.  Remember what happened to them right after the events of Good Friday.  They scattered.  They were frightened, and they fled the opportunity to talk to anyone.  When they did speak, they put their foot in their mouths.  Peter used his gift of speech to deny that he even knew the Lord, let alone witness to the Lord’s power to save.  At that time, the Apostles couldn’t even fashion words to describe what they were experiencing, so they were never going to be able to spread the Gospel.

    Until Pentecost.  Receiving the gift of the promised Holy Spirit, the Advocate that Jesus promised to send them, they are able not only to preach the Gospel, but to preach it in a way that people who spoke different languages were all able to understand it.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit brings everything together for them, and now, only now, are they able to say that Jesus is Lord!

    The absence of the Holy Spirit is unparalleled sadness. We can’t say – or do – anything really good without the advocacy of the Holy Spirit to inspire – literally breathe into us – the goodness for which we were created.

    So when we receive the Holy Spirit, we are inspired to say and do good things too.  The Holy Spirit will inspire us to speak many kinds of words in many situations.  We can depend on the Spirit to give us the words when we don’t have them.  Saint Paul teaches that the Spirit even prays in us when we can’t pray, expressing our needs in groanings when we can’t find the words to say.  So we can depend on the Holy Spirit to inspire us to speak …

    • Words of comfort to those who are going through difficult times. Maybe just by being with them and saying nothing at all.
    • Words of challenge when we are in a situation that is veering off course, and others are urging us to go the wrong way.
    • Words of correction when someone we love is acting out or not living up to their full potential.
    • Words of reconciliation when we seek to heal a broken relationship.
    • Words of vision when we are part of a group that is seeking to do something new.
    • Words of healing when we comfort another person who has been wronged by others.
    • Words of change when we stand up for what is right in a society that wants to do what it wants to do.
    • Words of mercy when we let go of a grudge or forgive someone who has hurt us.
    • Words of inclusion that de-marginalize others, open the doors to reconciliation, and help us to build up our corner of the world.

    The Holy Spirit will give us the right words for all of this at the right time, and we will be able to speak them in a way that everyone who needs to understand them can understand them.  We may never be able to speak multiple languages – I sure can’t! – but in the Holy Spirit we will be able to proclaim that Jesus is Lord in our words and actions and no one will be able to miss the significance of that – everyone will understand it, no matter what language they speak.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Today we’re gathered on what is, for us, the eve of the Ascension.  While the reading that we have in today’s Gospel is from John’s account of the eve of the Passion, the words could well have been spoken to the Apostles on the eve of the Ascension too.  So Jesus is speaking of a day in the future when his disciples could go directly to God the Father and ask for their needs in Jesus’ name.  That would be possible because Jesus has redeemed fallen humanity, and brought us back to the Father, cleansed of our iniquity.  But as they hear it, they had to be confused and maybe even a little brokenhearted at the idea of Jesus leaving them.

    But Jesus did have to leave them, because the truth of it is that nothing will happen with the fledgling Church until he does return to heaven.  Only then will the Father send the Holy Spirit to be with the Church until the end of time, giving the early disciples and us later disciples the grace and strength to go forward and proclaim the kingdom and call the world to repentance and grace.  If God’s purpose is to be advanced on this earth, then Jesus has to return to the Father.  If the Spirit does not descend, the Church would not be born.  If the Church were not born, the Gospel would be but an obscure footnote in the history of the world.

    The Good News for us is that the Holy Spirit has indeed come into the world, and continues to work among us today, as often as we call on him.  “Ask and you will receive,” Jesus says, and so we ask and receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit for the glory and praise of God.  We disciples, we friends of Jesus, can count on his blessing, the rich gift of the Holy Spirit, the great witness of the Church.  Our lives are enriched by our faith and our discipleship.  On this eve of the Ascension, we are yet again on the edge of our seats, longing for the fullness of salvation.  But even our waiting is glory for God: what we do here on earth, what we suffer in our lives, all that we celebrate — all this will bear fruit for the glory of God.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    I don’t believe in coincidences, spiritually speaking. Being in the right place at the right time isn’t usually a coincidence. Far more often than we realize, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit. That is certainly the case in today’s first reading. How else would we explain an angel directing Philip to be on a road at the very same time as the Ethiopian eunuch passed by, reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah that referred to Jesus? Seizing the moment, Philip proclaims Jesus to him in a way that was powerful enough and moving enough that, on seeing some water as they continued on the journey, the eunuch begged to be baptized.

    The same is true for those who were fortunate enough to hear Jesus proclaim the Bread of Life discourse that we’ve been reading in our Gospel readings these past days. Having been fed by a few loaves and fishes when they were physically hungry, they now come to find Jesus who longs to fill them up not just physically but also, and more importantly, spiritually. Their hunger put them in the right place at the right time.

    What I think is important for us to get today is that we are always in the right place at the right time, spiritually speaking. Wherever we find ourselves is the place that we are directed by the Holy Spirit to find God. Wherever we are right now is the place where the Holy Spirit wants us to find God and to proclaim God. That might be in the midst of peace, or chaos, or any situation. We never know how God may feed us in those situations. Because we never know when there will be someone like an Ethiopian eunuch there, aching to be filled with Christ’s presence and called to a new life.

    It is no coincidence that we are where we are, when we are. The Spirit always calls on us to find our God and proclaim him as Lord in every moment and every situation.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Mass of the Holy Spirit

    Mass of the Holy Spirit

    This homily was for the Mass of the Holy Spirit, celebrated at the beginning of the new school year.

    Readings: Isaiah 42:1-3; 1 Corinthians 12:4-13; Matthew 5:1-12a

    I’m grateful that we can come together as a community to celebrate Mass on this second day of the school year.  It’s good that we begin our year with Mass, and that we begin by asking for the help of the Holy Spirit.  That’s why we are celebrating a Mass of the Holy Spirit today.  A Mass of the Holy Spirit is a traditional way to begin a school year.

    So I once heard a story about a priest who was walking through the jungle.  At one point, he comes face to face with a very hungry lion.  The priest, of course, is very frightened and he makes the sign of the cross and prays, “Lord, if you can hear me, please fill this lion’s heart with the Holy Spirit.  The lion stops right in his tracks and a bright light begins to shine all around him.  The priest is relieved until he sees the lion fold his paws, bow his head, and say, “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts…”

    But of course, that’s not what the Holy Spirit is really like.  We know that the Holy Spirit is God: the third person of the Holy Trinity.  The Holy Spirit is the One who fills us with grace and helps us to do the really hard things in life, helps us to do the things that are really worth doing, those things that are part of who we are, those things that are our life’s vocation.

    I really don’t think we spend enough time praying to the Holy Spirit.  And that’s too bad, because we have to do really hard things in life, and we aren’t ever expected to do them all by ourselves.  In fact, if we do them by ourselves, we will very rarely be successful.  God the Father calls us to an amazing life, and wants us to shine and do great things, but when we insist on doing them ourselves, it can be very disappointing. 

    Just think about the Blessed Virgin Mary.  She was called to do maybe the hardest thing anyone has ever been called to do: to be the Mother of God.  Raising Jesus was probably very hard.  There was a lot of danger, and lots of people didn’t agree with the way Jesus was practicing the faith.  We know that she eventually had to watch her Son die on that cross.  How could she do all that and still have faith?  Well, she did it by relying on the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The Gospels tell us that she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and that’s how she conceived our Lord.  And she relied on the Holy Spirit to help her do her part in God’s plan.

    The Blessed Virgin is amazing.  Her faith is incredible.  But we are called to have that same faith, too, and we can get it the same way she did, by letting the Holy Spirit come into our lives and bring great things to birth in us.  We aren’t called to give birth to our Savior, but we are called to give birth to great ideas, to important technology that will save lives, to social programs that help those most in need.  And all of that starts now, with you learning in our school and especially by inviting the Holy Spirit into your life.

    That Holy Spirit will make demands of us, just like he made demands of Mary and even Saint Joseph who was the father of Jesus.  But he will never demand anything of us that we cannot do with the help of his grace.  Just as Mary was full of grace, which helped her to be the Mother of God, so that same Holy Spirit can give us grace to make the world a better place.

    Our second reading today tells us about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  We all aren’t filled with all of the gifts, and we all don’t have the same gifts.  But the Holy Spirit gives us all different gifts that serve the world and make it better.  It’s important to remember that those gifts aren’t for us alone: we are given gifts to share with others and help others and to continue to let God create great things in our world.

    So, this school year, we should rely on the Holy Spirit.  We shouldn’t expect him to give us answers to the test we didn’t study for.  We shouldn’t expect him to finish the homework we never started.  But we can expect him to help us to understand new things that seem hard.  We should expect him to make new ideas spark creativity in our souls.  We should expect him to inspire us to be there for our friends and classmates so that we can do our part in making our school a grace-filled place.

    All we have to do is to let the Spirit into our lives so we can be filled with his gifts.  Then our reward will be great in heaven!

  • The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You are not in the flesh;
    on the contrary, you are in the spirit…

    Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans is really a masterpiece of Christian doctrine and discipleship.  If you haven’t read it in a while, or ever, I think it’s good summer reading.  That reading will give you a vast array of tools to grow in your faith and discipleship during the rest of this liturgical year and the one to come. 

    Today’s second reading takes a portion of this letter to consider the idea of what the Holy Spirit does in our lives.  I think we Catholics don’t often think enough about the Holy Spirit.  Receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit when we receive the sacrament of Confirmation, we have mighty power, and that power, sadly, remains untapped in many of us.  The saints are people who have lived according to the Holy Spirit’s power in their lives, and chief among them, of course, is the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was so filled with the Holy Spirit that she was able to lay down her own life to give birth to Our Savior, and to become the queen of apostles.  Saints are people who are definitely in heaven, and they get there, friends, not on their own merits, but by relying on and living with the Holy Spirit.

    Saint Paul is really clear today: we are not in the flesh, we are in the spirit.  So we cannot live stuck in our fleshly existence.  He goes on to say, “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  And the life he’s talking about, friends, is the great gift of eternal life for which we were all created.  But the thing about that is that we sometimes think, well, I can live by the flesh now, because that eternal life thing is far off in the future.  Not so fast.  The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, now, as our Lord tells us over and over in the Gospels.  So if we want life in the kingdom, life forever, eternal life, we have to start living it now, living by the Spirit now.  There is no other way.

    So, as Saint Paul tells us, we have to put to death the deeds of the body, the works of the flesh.  So this, dear friends, is a call to an examination of conscience.  What is in our lives that needs to die?  We probably know some of them: impure relationships; taking part in addictions that sever our pure relationships with family, friends, community, and God; darker things like consulting mediums, new age philosophies, and practices of manifestation; spending too much time on the internet or watching television (disciples shouldn’t be binge watching anything), and the list goes on.  The first step in living for eternity is putting to death the things of the flesh, so we should all give that some serious prayer in the days ahead.

    And then, the next step, is living in the Spirit.  If our first step was to reflect on what in us needs to die, this next step should have us praying about what in us needs to live.  What is it that God has given us in our lives into which we need to pour our energy and talent and resources so that we live for the Kingdom and give glory to God?  If we have a family, then we need to bring the Spirit to our family: we need to pray for them and with them, give them quality and loving time, find the joy in them.  We priests have to pour everything into our ministry: loving our parishioners, giving them our time in the sacraments and in our prayer, showing them how to love Jesus and live for the Kingdom.  Wherever God has put us, we need to pour the Spirit we have received into that situation.  We need to bring everyone around us into the Kingdom, and find our joy in living for God and the other people in our lives.

    We are no longer men and women in the flesh, we are people of the Spirit, with the Spirit of Christ in us, and so in Christ we cast aside those deeds of darkness and, taking his yoke, we accomplish the work Jesus has given us.  This is the way, friends.  This is the way that brings us reasonable happiness in this life, and supreme happiness forever with our God.

  • The Solemnity of Pentecost

    The Solemnity of Pentecost

    Today’s readings

    As the pastor of Saint Mary’s, I am grateful to Bishop Hicks for his leadership on this important issue of the protection of children and vulnerable adults.  I think a lot of us are almost weary of hearing about this, but as Bishop points out, an institutional sin like this can’t ever be forgotten until all of the damage, including the sadness in people’s lives, has been healed.  And keeping this issue at the forefront of our attention helps us to keep the victims in our prayers and keep us vigilant about providing an environment where this never happens again.

    Also as pastor here, I sincerely apologize to anyone who has ever been harmed by the actions of a priest of this diocese, and in particular of this parish.  Please know that I pray for you in particular and sincerely ask for God’s healing in your lives.

    I am grateful for the Charter and for the processes that, over the last few decades, have helped us to make strides in creating a safe environment for children and vulnerable adults, and I pledge as pastor to be certain that these policies and best practices are followed here at Saint Mary’s so that all of our ministries are safe places for everyone who calls Saint Mary’s their spiritual home.  Please check our parish website for more information, including all of Bishop’s videos and his official statement.

    On this feast of Pentecost, I think it is important for us to know and see that the Holy Spirit continues to renew and purify the Church.  The Church not only needs to atone for its institutional sin, but it needs to be a beacon that encourages all of the institutions that involve children and vulnerable adults to do better.  Our world needs the Holy Spirit and the light given to us in the Church now more than ever.

    On this day when there is more than a little sadness, we need to embrace the joy of the Spirit so that we can brighten a darkened world.  And we see that joy in our first reading today.  The first line, “Each one heard them speaking in his own language” has always amazed me.  As I pictured it, I could just see people standing there in Jerusalem, and all at once these men start preaching and everyone hears them in his or her own language.  It must have been an amazing experience.  Certainly the message had to be powerful, but for each to hear it in his or her own native tongue had to boost the power of the experience for each of them.  This was the power of the Holy Spirit on display for all the world to see.

    That powerful experience helped to ignite the fire that was the early Church.  If not for this amazing experience, we wouldn’t be here today: there would be no Church.  But because Jesus returned to the Father and they sent forth the Spirit, those early apostles preached the Word to everyone and the Church was fostered that brings us the faith in our own day.  This is why Pentecost is often called the birthday of the Church.

    What I think is important to note about that experience is that the gift of the Holy Spirit enabled the Church to speak the Gospel to everyone.  Not just those who spoke Hebrew, or even Greek or Latin.  That clearly was the work of the Holy Spirit.  That miracle continues today too: thanks be to God, the Gospel is preached all over the world in many, many languages every single day.  And souls continue to be won for the Lord.  But for that Gospel to be believed, for it to be adopted and lived, it needs to be backed up by the way that we live.  Many people may miss the words of our preaching, but they can’t fail to notice our living, our actions – one way or the other.  As Saint Francis once said, “Preach the Gospel at all times.  When necessary, use words.”

    Sometimes words fail us.  We might not know the right thing to say in any situation, but in those moments, our actions can preach much louder than our speaking.  We often experience that when someone close to us has lost a loved one, or is grieving in some way.  Words aren’t going to make that all better, but our presence and being there for them says much more than our words could ever say.  That presence may be just the right thing to say at that time.

    I think all of this pertains to the news Bishop Hicks spoke of today.  We have to be a Church that is so on fire for the Gospel  that we speak in our words and actions in ways that make our Church a safe place.  We have to be there for victims, helping them to heal.  We have to say something when we see something that isn’t right.  We have to educate ourselves so that we know what to look for.  And we have to commit to doing these things so that the abuse of children and vulnerable adults never happens again.  If the Gospel is to mean anything in the world today, we have to be people who inconvenience ourselves to love others before we do anything else, or our preaching will continue to ring hollow.

    And we have no better example for this than our Lord Jesus Christ, who took on the worst in us because he saw the best in us.  He it is who took our sins – our sins – to the cross, and rose to everlasting glory that we might gain that same glory.  He it is who returned to the Father and with him sent their Holy Spirit upon the earth that we, the Church, might be purified and renewed.

    This broken world needs to hear the preaching in our actions, in the way we treat every person, so that this world can become the Kingdom of God.  We may well be the only time someone ever sees Jesus; may the preaching of our lives be so strong that they can’t fail to see Jesus in us.

    Come Holy Spirit! Renew the face of the earth! Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

    Note: You can find all of the information about our response to the Attorney General’s report here.

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    I don’t believe in coincidences. Being in the right place at the right time isn’t usually a coincidence. Far more often than we realize, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit. That is certainly the case in today’s first reading. How else would we explain an angel directing Philip to be on a road at the very same time as the Ethiopian eunuch passed by, reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah that referred to Jesus? Seizing the moment, Philip proclaims Jesus to him in a way that was powerful enough and moving enough that, on seeing some water as they continued on the journey, the eunuch begged to be baptized.

    The same is true for those who were fortunate enough to hear Jesus proclaim the Bread of Life discourse that we’ve been reading in our Gospel readings these past days. Having been fed by a few loaves and fishes when they were physically hungry, they now come to find Jesus who longs to fill them up not just physically but also, and more importantly, spiritually. Their hunger put them in the right place at the right time.

    What I think is important for us to get today is that we are always in the right place at the right time, spiritually speaking. Wherever we find ourselves is the place that we are directed by the Holy Spirit to find God. Wherever we are right now is the place where the Holy Spirit wants us to find God and to proclaim God. That might be in the midst of peace, or chaos, or any situation. We never know how God may feed us in those situations. Because we never know when there will be someone like an Ethiopian eunuch there, aching to be filled with Christ’s presence and called to a new life.

    It is no coincidence that we are where we are, when we are. The Spirit always calls on us to find our God and proclaim him as Lord in every moment and every situation.

  • Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    In these Easter days, the Scriptures begin to speak to us about the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift is not rationed, as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel reading. This gift is empowering and renewing and, according to the Psalmist, de-marginalizing.

    We all know the kind of men the Apostles were. Yet now, given the gift of the Holy Spirit, they have been transformed completely. Cowardice has been replaced by something very close to bravado. Ineffectuality has been replaced by miracle work. Hiding has been replaced by boldness fired by the truth. In a sense, they have been resurrected in these Easter days. They are new creations because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

    This is the gift that Jesus wants for us in these Easter days too. He wants us to know a complete transformation by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Having done penance and emptied ourselves of that which isn’t godly during Lent, we now have the grace of that Spirit to transform our lives, our hearts, and our desires during Easter.  Whatever it is that is lacking in us will be completely transformed in the Spirit so that we too can boldly proclaim the wonderful works of our God.

    That transformation happens little by little as we put ourselves in the presence of our God. We can do that in so many ways: taking quiet time for prayer, spending time with our Lord in adoration, reading Scripture for a few minutes each day, reaching out to others in prayerful service; all of these help us to be transformed in the Spirit. That’s how we can come to know how wonderful are the gifts that the Spirit is longing to bestow upon us, and how much they will transform us.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

    Alleluia!

  • Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Increase our faith,” indeed! How often have you had that same reaction to the marvels of God happening in your life? I think about the many times I have had the Spirit point out something I should have seen all along because it was right there in front of my face. Increase my faith, I pray.

    Because, as Jesus tells us today, there are many things that cause sin, and they will inevitably happen. But how horrible to be tangled up in them, right? Whether we’ve caused the occasion for sin, or have been the victim of it, what a tangled mess it is for us. Maybe we have made someone so angry that their response was sinful. Or perhaps we have neglected to offer help where it was needed and caused another person to find what they need in sinful ways. Or maybe we’ve said something scandalous or gossiped about another person and those who have overheard it have been brought to a lower place. None of that makes anyone involved happy; everyone ends up deficient in faith, hope and love in some way. The same is true if we were the ones to have fallen into the trap of an occasion of sin. Don’t we just want to kick ourselves then?

    This is what the Psalmist was talking about when he prayed, “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.” Now, if those are the only words you utter in prayer some day, rest assured they are probably well-chosen. Maybe some days that’s all we can manage. I’ll translate it for you in an even shorter way: “HELP!” Because when we are tangled up in sin, or brought low by suffering of some kind, maybe those are the only words we can manage. But God hears those words and answers them, because we can never fall so far that we are out of God’s reach. Listen to some more of the Psalmist’s excellent words today:

    Where can I go from your spirit?
    From your presence where can I flee?
    If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I sink to the nether world, you are present there.

    Increase our faith, Lord, guide us in the everlasting way.