The road to Emmaus is a beautiful story about a journey of faith—a journey that we all know very well. 

It begins with two disciples walking alongside their Master.  Although initially filled with hope, they struggle to understand the reality of the suffering and the cross that they have encountered.  Jesus points to their foolishness, not only because they failed to understand his teaching and prophecy, but also because they chose to ignore the women in their own group who proclaimed that the tomb was empty and that Jesus was alive!  Imagine: if you were one of the disciples who had followed Jesus closely for several years, and you heard that he was alive, wouldn’t you stick around in Jerusalem to search for Him? Why walk away defeated as if Jesus never existed?

Yet we so often do that very thing—when we sin, we live as if Jesus were not risen! Thus, our Mass begins with a similar scenario where we call to mind all of the times where we have lived as if Jesus were not risen: “Lord, have mercy! Christ, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!”

Sufficiently reproached, we then humbly listen to Jesus who proceeds to open up the Scriptures for us in the liturgy of the word: the Old Testament and Psalms lay the foundation, and the letters and the Gospel bring it all to fulfillment in Jesus Christ.  Just as Jesus revealed to the two disciples that he was indeed the flawless continuation of God’s love affair with humanity, so too does the first part of the Mass immerse us in that same story.  “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” Please, God, that my homilies do much the same for you!  That they complete the liturgy of the word by leading our hearts into a burning desire for the Lord!

But that’s not all. As the journey continues, the disciples plead with Jesus, “Stay with us!”  Jesus heeds their request, and begins to do something he had done when feeding the thousands, when instituting the Eucharist, and which would be repeated in his Church for millennia to come: he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them… In this simple but iconic gesture, Jesus was recognized for who he truly was. It was and continues to be in the breaking of the bread that our eyes are opened to see him!  With hearts on fire, we are to go forth like the disciples proclaiming that, YES, “The Lord has truly been raised!”

The road to Emmaus is our road through the Mass.  Let us enter the Mass with great hope, with our hearts open to his word, recognize our Lord’s presence in the Eucharistic breaking of the bread, and go forth into the world proclaiming that Jesus is truly risen!

Father Michael

Although Catholicism is the largest single denomination in the US, we are doubly outnumbered by Protestants in general. This means that, like it or not, we American Catholics are deeply influenced by Protestants. In that light, on this Divine Mercy Sunday, allow me to share five arguments proving that Jesus gave us sacrament of divine mercy: confession.

#1: John 20:23 “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” There are three things that Jesus immediately does upon resurrecting and appearing to his apostles for the first time: first, He says, “Peace be with you”; second, He gives them the Holy Spirit; third, He gives them the authority to forgive sins on His behalf. Why in the world would He give men the authority to do what only God can do (Mark 2:7) if He didn’t want them to use that authority? And if that isn’t enough, Jesus did much the same when He gave Peter the authority to bind or loose things in heaven (Matt 16:18-19). Jesus Himself gave us the sacrament of confession.

#2: Catholicism or bust. If you believe that Jesus founded the Catholic Church and not the Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist, etc. (see Matt 16:18-19), then you necessarily must believe in sacramental confession. Under the Holy Spirit, the Church has definitively declared this again and again, council after council; so for Catholics at least, if you’re going to be rationally consistent, confession isn’t optional.

#3: James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to one another.” James tells us to confess our sins to other Christians. Regardless of who he means by “one another”, this shows us that the confession of sins has always been more than a private prayer devotion for Christians. The Acts of the Apostles itself says of those who were converting, “Many also of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.” (Acts 19:18) Confessing to another Christian (i.e. a priest) is essential because our sins affect the rest of the church and not just our personal relationship with God alone.

#4: History Proves It. If Scripture wasn’t enough, innumerable early Christian writings show us that those temporally closest to Jesus believed that Jesus intended a public confession of sins. We read from the Didache, written at about the same time as some New Testament books: “Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life… On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure.” (Didache 4:14, 14:1) Or, to take an example from Origen: “[A final method of forgiveness], albeit hard and laborious [is] the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner . . . does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord and from seeking medicine, after the manner of him who say, ‘I said, “To the Lord I will accuse myself of my iniquity.”’” (Homilies on Leviticus 2:4 [A.D. 248])

#5: James 5:14-15 “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the presbyters of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” The same passage that clearly points to the sacrament of anointing of the sick also shows us that sins can be forgiven through the ministry of priests.

Jesus gave us a gift in sacramental confession, so it’s only reasonable to think that He had good reasons for doing so! I’d encourage you to go at least every couple months. I go every few weeks.

Father James

“There is more.” If there were a slogan for Christianity, I think that this would be it! There is more… There is more joy, more peace, more happiness, freedom, and fulfillment waiting for you. Healing can happen, resurrection is an option, and what you see isn’t just what you get. There is more! There is more to life, more to marriage, more to family, friends, and fellowship than you realize. Jesus is always bringing more for those open to receiving it, and whatever the cross, whatever the roadblocks, whatever the pain, discouragement, and death that we face, there is always more redemption available.

What is striking about the saints is that they never say, “That is enough!” That is enough God, enough charity, enough hope. No, they know that heaven is not just watching the Cubs win the world series (and neither is hell thankfully!), nor is heaven enjoying grandma’s cheesecake again, or throwing a perfect game, or enjoying a good book and a tasty drink at the ocean—wonderful as these things are! Heaven doesn’t just satisfy our desire for pleasure, knowledge, and beauty, but also goodness, love, and belonging as well. All of the best memories in our lives, all of the greatest achievements, and even something more.

The saints were never fully satisfied in this life not because they didn’t enjoy life, or experience profound relationships, or achieve great feats—au contraire! They knew how to enjoy life in the best ways possible! Rather, they were never fully satisfied in this life because they knew that even these things were only a dim reflection of the glory to come. God always has even more in store. 

How do you fit the infinite into something finite? You don’t. That’s why in heaven there will be an eternity of wonder, an eternity of new life, an eternity of deepened love. Heaven could never be “boring” because by definition, as C.S. Lewis put it, it’s an eternity of joyfully traveling “further up and further in”! 

“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him!” (1 Cor 2:9) In a post-Easter world, we can take to heart St. Paul’s exhortation, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!” For when it comes to life in Christ, life in His Church, and life as God’s beloved child, there is always more!

Father James

On Good Friday, Pontius Pilate was not the only one who had a choice to make. The very same choice was brought both to the people of the world then, as well as to the people of the world now. We may be unaware of this choice, but that’s why the Church in her wisdom has us hear Pontius Pilate pose the very same question to us this weekend.  He brings before us the one called Jesus of Nazareth, and the one known as Barabbas.  The two seem like they couldn’t be more different, until we recognize that Bar-abbas literally means “son of the father”.  Here then is our choice and question: Which son of the father will we follow?   Will we choose to follow Jesus Christ, the son of the Father of sacrificial love, or will you follow Bar-abbas, the son of the father of the passions?

Surprisingly, we participate in the Palm Sunday liturgy by crying out, “Barabbas!” It’s a painful moment each year no matter how many times we’ve done it, because if we are honest with ourselves, we know that we all too often choose our own passions over our Lord.  Like the crowds before Pilate, we too choose to act selfishly over being selfless.  In a sense, whenever we choose sin, we once again choose Bar-abbas!

To admit this is hard.  It’s very sobering. It first of all takes a certain about of self-awareness—and then, very quickly, a lot of humility. To be willing to look in the mirror and humbly submit our understanding of right vs. wrong to the God of all, rather than to what we’d like to think is right or wrong. When we put aside our attempts at justifying ourselves and our actions, the reality is clear: in our human brokenness, we don’t always do what is right! St. Paul describes this experience so well: “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.” (Rom 7:15) What then do we do? Do we just surrender, give up, and resign ourselves to a life of sin?  NO! “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!””  (Rom 8:15) In Christ we have forgiveness; in Christ we have hope. Just look at St. Peter! He himself who was hand-picked by Jesus to be the rock upon which the Church was built denied our Lord 3 times. The head of the apostles himself had at one point ‘chosen Barabbas’. Yet,

The Church is founded upon forgiveness.  Peter himself is a personal embodiment of this truth! She is held together by forgiveness, and Peter is the perpetual living reminder of this reality: she is not a communion of the perfect but a communion of sinners who need and seek forgiveness. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

As we experience Palm Sunday, let us never be afraid to acknowledge our brokenness, seek forgiveness, and turn with confidence to our true Father through His one eternal Son!

Father Michael

When discussing our Catholic faith with one of my friends, he’ll usually respond, “Wow, you actually believe this?”  He says it in jest and sarcasm, as he too is a practicing Catholic.  The statement is more to point out where we are in our society when it comes to understanding and living out our faith, as it seems to go against our cultural norms.

Over the last 4 and half weeks of Lent, I have been going to various parishes, schools, and homes to bring people the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and that doesn’t include the increased hours of the Sacrament Reconciliation this coming week from 7-8:30PM, Monday through Friday, March 27th-31st offered at our parish. 

The Sacrament is a beautiful gift Jesus gave the Church (Jn 20:21-23; 2 Cor 5:11-21), and I’ve seen the power of the Sacrament through my own vocation.  Fr. James has preached on the precept of the Church that a Catholic is required to go to confession at least once a year.  One can respond, like my friend, “You actually believe this?” Of course my answer is “Yes” and our Gospel this weekend continues to reveal it.

There are many beautiful insights with the story of raising Lazarus, but I’ll point to one in particular.  Death was a result of sin, so when Jesus says to the people as Lazarus comes out of the tomb, “Unbind him and let him go,” Jesus is revealing his authority to free people not only from death, but sin as well.  Jesus desires to do the same in our lives.  He desires to call us from death to new life; He desires to free us from sin that binds us.  Let us take advantage of this gift the Lord has given us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Father Michael