Daily Reflection:
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Friends, this is my homily for the 3
rd
Sunday of Easter…based on the Gospel…the two disciples walking to Emmaus and discover Jesus in the Breaking of the Bread…Luke 24: 13-35
Oh, hi there, I see you are walking in the same direction that I am…I needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air…
I thought a walk along the ocean here in Carlsbad would be helpful…may I walk with you?
Even with the masks that you are wearing…you both look familiar…you are both Parishioners at St. Thomas More, right?
“Yes, we are…we both came out for a walk here and ran into each other…we have been friends and STM Parishioners for years… so we decided to walk together.”
I am wearing my mask just as the two of you are… and I will keep the social distancing directives, but you know, I’d rather call them spatial distancing directives…
We always need to be social, even if we are spatially apart.
Is that okay with you?
It is so much better to walk with someone than to walk alone, especially during these difficult days of the pandemic. It’s good to have company and have someone to talk with…Okay?
“Sure, glad to have you with us…”
Gosh folks, you both look so downcast, sad, confused, even angry…is today a more difficult day for you than the other days that we are all going through?
What’s happening… can we talk about it?
“Sure, let’s talk!
I think the two of us are just really overwhelmed today…we are allowing everything get to us…you know what I mean?”
Sure I do…but tell me more…
“Well, my friend here, Mary, her older daughter, Cathy, was to be married in April…everything had to be cancelled…so many of their friends and family were coming in from all over the country…they already had their flight reservations…and now there is no date in sight when things can be rescheduled.
Her younger son, Tony, was to graduate from Rancho Buena Vista this June…everything is up in the air…
Mary and her husband, Ray, own a small dry cleaning business, and they had to shut down…people are not getting out to socialize and so clothes aren’t getting dirty and don’t need to be cleaned…hopefully some of the government money for small businesses will come their way…
There is more, but you get the picture…
And for me, well my name is Joe, by the way… my wife is a nurse and she is working at Scripps Memorial, and we have made the difficult decision to live apart during this time, so that she doesn’t, just by accident, get the virus and bring it home to me and our four kids…
The kids and I miss her so much…I need her to kiss me and I want to see her hug our kids… I am so angry that we can’t do that now…
And on top of all this, my mother died…and we can’t have a funeral now…she is cremated…she is in an urn…sitting on a shelf in the mortuary waiting for her turn for a funeral Mass at St. Thomas More Parish with a proper burial for a life-long practicing Catholic…
It hurts so much, and I can’t stop crying…”
Oh God, I do understand and I know it all too well myself, there is so much that is happening in my life as well, but for me, today is a good day and I am filled with hope…can I share my feelings with you?
“Yes, go ahead…a message of hope would be helpful for both of us right now.”
Thanks! Here goes…we need to remember that Jesus is walking with us…what we are going through, he has gone through, and he shows us the way…
Remember there is nothing that we are going through, no pain , no suffering, that he himself didn’t go through…he got through it and so will we…
We need to remember the Cross, it is the foundation of our faith, from death comes life…
Jesus embraced his cross, he died… but he rose from the dead, and he gave us new life, new hope, and new beginnings.
That’s the key…embrace the pain, the suffering, the death, and new life, and better life will come forth from it…
This pandemic, if we embrace it in faith, will create a new normal, a better world that is more focused on Gospel values, more appreciative of the world in which we live, the Global Village with one God over us all…
Do you believe this?
“Oh gosh, we sure do! Your faith is our faith… but I think we just both lost it today…
I am so happy that you ran into us, and that we accepted your request to walk with us…thank you…you have lifted up our spirits…we both are feeling so much better…you have reminded us that Jesus is alive and is walking with us…we will get through this thanks to you!”
This conversation may be a little different than the conversation in today’s Gospel. But is it really different?
I don’t think so…
What was the key factor in the Gospel conversation and in the conversation that I created in today’s homily?
Hospitality…the willingness to open ourselves up to one another, to share conversation, to invite each other into each other’s lives, to break bread together…when we do that, we discover and rediscover, over and over again, that Jesus is with us, he is walking with us, and we are not alone.
Although in these days, we cannot share Eucharist in Church at Mass, but any time and every time we are open to hospitality, when we are willing to invite each other into each other’s lives, in whatever ways we can, we are sharing Eucharist…
Eucharist…just as real as the Eucharist from the altar in this Church, and maybe even more real in these difficult days…
We may look back at these days and really be moved by the way we did experience Eucharist when we couldn’t experience Eucharist…
Anytime we welcome each other and share hospitality…it is Eucharist… God is in our midst! God is walking with us!
--Fr. Mike
