There's something I want to tell you that helped MY life a great deal and I believe it can help the lives of a good many people here this morning also.

It happened in Salt Lake City in August of 1954. During the conference, I had two visions - one right after the other. A spiritual vision is not one that you stand apart from and observe objectively. You're INVOLVED in it. You EXPERIENCE IT.

But first let me give you a little background. There isn't time in a sermon to go into a lot of detail, so I'll make it as succinct as possible. I grew up with an overwhelming inferiority complex. For example (and laugh if you'd like to but I'm dead serious) when I went out for football, I was leery of tackling the other fellow for fear of offending him. And that inferiority complex was the bane of my existence for a good many years.

I went on through school, through the army, through seminary and the first five years of my Priesthood with that complex still hounding me.

I was ordained in 1949. In 1954 I went to a national conference on sensitivity training in Salt Lake City and I took the complex with me. Five years in the ministry is long enough for an innocent young cleric to get indoctrinated with the notion that he's the king of the parish and that he can do no wrong - as inconsistent with the inferiority complex as that might seem. But there it was: both of them living side by side in me.

We conferees were from all over the U.S. and only a few of us had known each other before. Daily, for two hours, we were divided into groups of twelve - plus the group moderator. In our group, the moderator spoke only once in the whole two weeks.

Three of us in my group had known each other in seminary. Paul and Bob and I. Bob lived in Idaho. Paul and I were both in San Joaquin Diocese. Paul and I were sitting side by side and Bob was across the table from us.

I didn't like Bob very well because at seminary he was always trying to pick an argument with someone, set up his opponent as a straw man, and then knock him down with his arguments. That irked me a bit, but not too much.

But Paul I REALLY didn't like because he had grown up in a little French enclave in San Francisco and he was forever trying to be superior over the rest of us.

Early in the second week of the conference, one morning Bob started picking and picking and picking on Paul. I could see what he was doing. He was back to his old tricks of setting up a straw man and it made me mad. But they were big boys and could take care of themselves - so I stayed out of it and let them go at it. All the time I was getting madder and madder inside.

Finally the two of them settled the matter and put on their band-aids. - But I was still silently seething inside.

I couldn't hold it any longer and suddenly I blurted out, "That's fine for you guys! They've smoothed everything over. You all can go home and forget about it. But I still have to live with this guy!" (meaning Paul.)

Then suddenly I heard myself spewing out a torrent of the vilest, blackest venom against Paul. It was as if I were completely detached from myself and I couldn't believe that this poison was gushing out of me - the pious and pure little parish Priest. But I simply couldn't turn it off.

Suddenly, there was nothing but total blackness all around me. Just this utter blackness. I had been there forever in history backwards and would be there eternally in the future. No one else existed - just me. I was walking on burning coals and there was no way out. This would be eternity and it was unbearable - but there was no escape.

At that moment, the voice of the group moderator pierced the blackness and said, "Could this be hell?" And I was jolted to the reality that yes, it was. And at that point I was returned to the presence of the room, I was totally exhausted. My wrists were flopped out on the table in front of me and Paul had lain his hand ever so lovingly on my wrist. All that poisonous invective with which I had covered him was completely over-arched with love.

That love flowed and flowed and flowed and pulsed through me like I had never known love before.

Then, just as I had been enveloped in that total blackness a moment before, now I was taken up into glorious, glorious light! I was completely engulfed in this marvelous light. It wasn't blazing and strong like the sun. It was exceedingly bright, but a soft, loving light. I knew that I'd been in it eternally backwards and would be eternally forward. I just knew that the light was God, that this was love. I couldn't see any forms or figures but I knew it was God.

And I also knew that I would eternally and constantly be meeting and loving new people and would be loved by them.

And after a while, I returned again to the presence of the room. For the few minutes we had left for that morning I just related my two visions to the others in the group - and they went on to say that at that moment, they all had had similar but not identical experiences. And they all told about similar experiences they had had at the same time.

That was the first time I had ever EXPERIENCED the love of God and it was the most marvelous thing that had ever happened to me.

So, in quick succession I had experienced both Hell and Heaven. I had also experienced God's reaching down into that ultimate blackness of my utter self-centeredness and taking me into the total ecstasy of His love.

People often say, "Why can't I have an experience like that?" The answer is: I don't think it's necessary. I'm not being funny, but I think I got body-slammed like that because I was too thick to get it any other way. Most people are a lot more sensitive than I was. Also, God doesn't work with everybody in just one way.

In the days afterward, as I basked in the afterglow, different things started to firm up in my mind. The most important thing was that: SINCE GOD LOVES ME SO MUCH, I AM WRONG NOT LOVE MYSELF EQUALLY MUCH. If I don't, I'm wasting a perfectly good crucifixion. The inferiority complex was suddenly gone and I could face any and all in the full love and confidence of Christ.

This grew out of my contemplating Jesus' summary of the Law, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart and soul and mind. And the second commandment is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The LOVE THY NEIGHBOR part I already knew. It was the AS THYSELF bit that was a new revelation to me.

If God loved me enough to die for me, I really must be worth something and therefore it's okay to have a regard for myself.

I go around preaching this gospel partly because that's what Jesus said to do - and partly because so many people are starved to hear it. So many, many people feel that the whole thing is to love everybody else and diminish themselves.

No, that isn't the model Jesus gave us. Indeed, He was the Lord of humility - as shown in the beatitudes - but when the Pharisees tried to put Him down, He was every bit the man in charge.

Not everyone needs to hear what I've said today. But to the rest, if any of it is helpful please take it. ACCEPT His forgiveness of you. Don't worry about not being worthy. He's already taken care of that. Acknowledge your goof-ups - that's your confession - He forgives them. Then you walk away from it. You can never FORGET your sins but once you've accepted His forgiveness, you no longer have to worry about them. But He has neutralized them. All YOU need do is accept that forgiveness. So just look back and smile at them in the gratitude of His love.

SO

Go forth in peace.

Go forth without fear

for He that created you has sanctified you,
has always protected you

and loves you as a mother.