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Hello again, everyone. It's Father Rob. I'm recording on the ocean, so I'm hoping you can hear me. I didn't bring the right microphone to do this. So, anyway, I'm sitting here taking a few days away from the parish. I'm actually coming back to the parish tonight, but wanted to share a word with you before I do. I didn't post anything last week, and Easter Sunday and Divine Mercy Sunday are just great feasts and two great nots to say something here on the podcast. So last Sunday, Easter Sunday, I preached about how the church itself can be for us an experience of the risen Christ. Wanted people in the pews, especially those visiting, to hear that there's people in the church who were once dead but are alive again, like Christ. People who lost jobs, for example, but got out there again. People who were betrayed by friends, for example, but can trust again. People who were bound by addiction but are free again. People who are depressed but are happy again. And people who are crushed, say, by a diagnosis, but who are hopeful again and determined to live out their days. So the church is full of people who were dead but are alive again. And in this way, I think it can be for us a place of encounter with the risen Christ. I wanted the young people visiting from college, for example, especially, rather to hear that message, because they hear all the time about empirical data and measurements and discoveries. They are a stem generation, you know. So unless they hear that there is a possibility of verifying Christianity in a similar way that they can meet Christ in reality, it will sound unscientific to them and therefore irrational. But I respect that, because it would be unreasonable to expect a modern person to ascend to the Christian faith unless that person were able to meet Christ in the flesh and to touch him the way that Thomas did, for example. You know, it's not just modern man who demands this. Even St. Thomas, one of the apostles, asked for a kind of empirical verification. He said, unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. Just like many today who only seldom come to Mass on Sundays, Thomas wasn't there when Christ showed himself first in the upper room to the other disciples. But then he hears this word about something that happened. Something was preached to him, something happened, they said to him, you know, we saw him, he appeared to us. But notice they weren't inviting Thomas to embrace a philosophy or a theory. They were witnessing to an event with conviction. Thomas responds on behalf of all young people today who want to verify it for themselves. He says, let me touch this risen Christ myself that I may believe. So then Jesus a week later appears to Thomas and says, thomas, put your finger into the nail marks and your hand into the place where the sword pierced my side and believe that Jesus allows Thomas to touch him so that Thomas could come to believe him. So St. Thomas really is like a patron saint of this generation. They're going to need this second chance. They're going to need the opportunity to touch and to verify what they're hearing about the way Thomas did. It was specifically the wounds that Thomas was interested in touching. And that wasn't some morbid curiosity. I want to stick my hand in his wounds. It was because the wounds were mortal. He knew that Jesus died on the cross. So only if those wounds are really healed will I believe that the Master has actually conquered death. Thomas would say, right, that's why he goes for the wounds. Let me see his wounds. And we make the same demand of the Church. Unless I can touch the wounds of someone who lost his job or was betrayed, or who was addicted or was depressed, or who was laid low by ill health or just a poor temperament, unless I can touch those wounds and see that they are being healed, I will not believe it's understandable. But if I can't touch those wounds of that person, and they do not, or that person does not scold me or hurt me for doing so, but instead says, see, he has healed me well, then perhaps I will believe that those in the Church are dealing with one whose love is stronger than death and can heal all wounds, you know, because what's happening in the world but people touching each other's wounds and getting angry at each other for don't touch me there, but in the Church, so you see, you can touch the wounds, see how he's healing them. That's different, right? You know, dealing with a love that is stronger than death. And I say love because it's the love of God that is coursing through the veins of the Church, which is the body of Christ. I said this last Sunday as well, that Jesus said, this is how they will know that you are my disciples if you love one another as I have loved you. See, he wasn't relying on miracles and spirituality to communicate his life, but love. And how did he love us while he was on earth with us? What was his method or the way that he loved us? He looked at us and spoke to us in such a way that softened our hardened hearts and created an openness in us, a willingness to allow him to touch our wounds. See, this is the trust. This is what it means to trust that I will allow someone to touch my wounds, that I may be healed. The way a child is taught to trust the doctor for the sake of healing. This is why Jesus asks us even now to say, jesus, I trust in you. From his wounds flows a fountain of love and mercy for us. But will we allow that love and mercy into our hearts and into the wounds of our hearts? This is the only reason that I want people to come to the church. I don't care about getting people to do religious things. I'm not interested in making people behave. I'm certainly not interested in growing an institution. And by temperament, I'm uncomfortable generally with telling people what to do. I don't even find the devil or the fear of hell really motivating. At least not enough for me to preach with conviction on Easter Sunday. To those looking in at the church from the outside, it's because I know that perspective myself, the view of the church from the periphery. I grew up looking in at the church. I felt that way even when I was in the seminary studying for the priesthood, like I didn't really belong there. And I feel that way now that I'm ordained. It's not the virtue of humility, it's just what it is for me. But it shapes the way I preach to people and speak to you here. I'm always like Thomas in that way. The other guys see it first before me, and then I get let into the thing later. I've come to understand about myself that I am a man completely dependent on second chances. My only hope for holiness, or heaven for that matter, is in second chances. And when I preach, I tend to consider of first importance those in the church who may feel like they're looking in at something from the outside and need a second chance. Even as I record for you now I'm away from the parish, visiting with family out of state, sitting on the shore of an ocean in the wind, trying to cover the microphone as best I can. Anyway, when I'm here, I attend Mass with my family by sitting in the pews with them. We've got no particularly close connection with any parish community down here. My family is like me in that way, more comfortable with looking in at the church than actually getting in. But of course, and this is the challenge until my family and I really touched the life of some parish here, we're just doing religious things while we're here. You Know, and that's not the same thing as living in the freedom of the risen Christ, which only a relationship with a community can make possible. But here's the thing. On this Divine Mercy Sunday, it's been good for me to be made aware of my own personal need for mercy. I am impatient, irritable, even vulgar at times. Not blaming my family. It's not their fault. It is through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. My family, on the other hand, are very merciful with me. They're understanding and forgiving, and they say things like, oh, he's probably just stressed with things happening at the parish. And that's nice of them. But the truth is much simpler. When I am away from a living relationship with a parish, I am as miserable as any other man. Even though I am a priest, I am merely a Catholic looking in at life from the outside. See, I'm no better than any of you, nor is my family better than any of yours. There are times when I think we're the worst people of all. But even that's a kind of false humility, you know, it's just life. We're all sinners and all families are full of stress and conflict. But we're being treated mercifully by God. Breathing air we didn't create, eating food we didn't grow. The culture of death that we do create, the coldness in our hearts that we do grow. That's what he wants us to offer him so he can heal those wounds. But even then, our woundedness, the woundedness of our humanity, is the offering we make to God. We offer him our sins, our imperfect intentions, our tepid thanksgiving and our pitiful praise, which is our need for Him. We are beggars looking out at the ocean. Right now I see his grandeur and his beauty and how worthy he is of our praise, but how seldom we think of him, the One who created this world for us and gave us life. That this is the offering that pleases him, our awareness of our ingratitude. That's why I'm grateful for weeks like this past, one with my family, where I am reminded painfully by my rash temper and pedantic tone of my own need for the Church. I am also like you, standing in the waters of our common, wounded humanity. And I too, must allow Christ to touch my personal wounds. I need to hear the Father say about me in my heart. With you I am well pleased. But it makes no more sense to me than it did to those first disciples who heard it spoken of Jesus as He stood in the waters of the Jordan, he was associating himself with us sinners. How could that be pleasing to God? Shouldn't our need for repentance first be overcome before we should ever please God? Shouldn't we make ourselves perfect before coming into his presence, before going to church? But you can hear how silly that is. If I could make myself worthy of church before going, why should I go? The church is a sea of fallen humanity. But Jesus says that his love is an infinite ocean of mercy. An infinite ocean. The church is a river of people in need of second chances, called out of the world into a holy communion with God and one another, but simply responding. We witness to the world of what he can accomplish if we would allow him. And what does he accomplish? He turns wounds into glory. That's it. There are some inside of the church who foolishly pride themselves on not having wounds. They are annoying, and most people pity them. But there are still more people who, by a kind of humble fault, hide their wounds, like the publican in the temple, who wouldn't even look up to God when he prayed out and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. But those on the inside, even if on the periphery, who allow Christ to touch their wounds, will find that they are in fact touching Christ's wounds, His wounds, like Thomas. So I love that first reading we heard yesterday at Mass from the Acts of the Apostles. They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers. All who believed were together and had all things in common every day. They devoted themselves to meeting together and to breaking bread in their homes. See, that's the other thing. I preached in my Easter homily, that before there were written gospels, there was the church. People were coming together for the teaching of the apostles. It's the homily, the breaking of the bread. It's the Eucharist and the prayers. Not some prayers, but the prayers. There was already forming a kind of common life, a shared life of prayer, a liturgical life. And that life overflowed into a life of sharing everything else in common. This is what the Church can be. The church can be the ideal society. There is communion in the church, but it's not communism. There is freedom in the church, but it's not liberalism. And there is industriousness, but it's not capitalism. And Christians, those early Christians, they gave thanks to the Lord because He is good, not because they were. They knew his love endures forever while theirs was Fickle. See, they trusted. They trusted in what had been promised to them in their baptism, an inheritance that is imperishable but, like gold, must be tested in the fires of living in community with other people, with family and friends, and with the Church. I preached the way I did on Easter Sunday, because while there are many things a person can do alone, being Christian is just not one of them. When Padre Pio was being tested by the authorities of the Church, like gold tried in fire, who wanted some proof of his holiness, and not just words from pious people about his alleged miracles, they tested him in the only real way that a person's faith can be tested. They asked him how he thinks about the Church. The Church doesn't need men like you, they said to him, to test him. Then he replied, you know, you may be right, but I need the Church. When I'm sitting in the pews with my family, even as a priest down here, for example, on a little vacation, I wrestle with distractions and fighting off feelings of superiority. And all I can do is say, with Padre Pio, the Church may not need me, but I need the Church. But do those foul and festering wounds of my heart want the Church? No. No more than Christ wanted to go to the cross. But he did go, and so must I. I must go to the Church. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory? It was. And is it not necessary that I must suffer too by belonging to the Church? And it is. And the Church must suffer me to come unto her. But she does, because she's a loving mother who loves all her children, especially those most in need of her Son's mercy. We went to the 12pm Mass here yesterday. It was tough. Liturgies these days are pretty painful. That's why I'm so grateful to be with you at Christ the King. We're really, really blessed with Therese. Anyway. I joked with my niece on the way out of the church. Some people say to me, I just can't understand why so few people go to church. And I'm like, really? You don't? You know, I'm more amazed sometimes at how many people do. But I know I'm no better than anybody that I could be critical of at the church. And if Mass feels like a crucifixion to me, then maybe that's a good thing. Because what's being crucified in me is my pride, my tendency to criticize what differs from my preferences or perspective, and that for false pride that pretends to like Looking in at the church from the outside? No. Those are from the wounds of my heart. I want to belong. I want communion. Anyway, those wounds, they become apparent to me at Mass, and they are what I offer to God on the altar. I know that's why Christ is coming to me. To take upon Himself the sins that make me want to stay away from him and from his people. In this way, his healing draws me into communion. I'm only free from sin when I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I am only close to God when I acknowledge that I am away from him and only close to my neighbor when I acknowledge that I am far from them. Almost everything in me resists going to the Mass when it feels so unpleasant. But there is something else in me that desires it. Underneath my fear and my sins, there is a heart that can say, with St. Peter, you know everything. So you know, Lord, that underneath my denial of you, I love you. There's a desire in my heart for God that He put there. And I cling to that desire. And it alone is what I have to offer him at Mass. But of course, that's all he's asking of me. That's all he's asking of any of us. If we had anything worthy of him to offer on our own, he wouldn't have sent his son to die for us. If we didn't have wounds, we wouldn't need healing. Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. And this is how the church can be for us, an experience of the risen Christ. We can come before him wounded and pitiable, and just let him love us. Then we might be among those people in the pews who were once dead, but who are alive again. People who lost jobs but who got out there again. People who were betrayed by friends but can trust again. People who are bound by addiction but are free again. People who are depressed but are happy again. And people who are crushed by a diagnosis but are hopeful again. And people like me who are suffering their own miserable temperament but can try again. And we wouldn't be looking in from the outside. We would be living among the dead who have been raised thanks to his infinite ocean of mercy. Ra.