We know what hour it is, too. It is the hour of confession, not concession; conversion, not diversion; not passive accompaniment, but active witness. It is the time to make Jesus bigger.

If we disregard the things that have supported our culture, and don’t permit the culture’s assumptions even to be spoken out loud, people are left entirely on their own, with nothing other than their personal judgment to guide them.

Witnesses have a lifetime commitment to Jesus in Scripture, Jesus in the Sacraments, Jesus in prayer, Jesus in evangelization. That’s not just a skill, but a life. Witnesses like that don’t just have a mission. They are a mission.

All the people who have been faithful for a really long time started receiving heaven a really long time ago. They have been receiving the very life of Christ, perhaps daily, for decades. They have spent all those years in Jesus’ friendship, and been transformed by that experience.

When arguments disappear, however, that isn’t always the end of the world. When people see that there are no arguments that hold up against the truth claims of the Gospel, that can be pretty persuasive, too – even in the presence of name-calling and threats.

The Devil believes that God exists. The Devil believes that Jesus exists. The Devil believes that Jesus can do everything He says He can do. That’s where the faith of a lot of people stops, which means they don’t believe any more than the Devil does.

He was talking about the staggeringly better news that heaven is coming to us, in fact is coming to us today. The Church teaches that at every Mass heaven touches earth, that the Risen and Glorified Jesus is present to us and places His life in our hands. And because it is His life in us, His life in us today, then we are no longer “poor in spirit.”