On the night before our Lord suffered and died,
he gathered his apostles together in the upper room in the Cynical
to celebrate the first holy sacrifice of the Mass.
There he took the celebration of the Paschal meal,
which had been celebrated in Israel for ages
in remembrance of the Passover of the Lord
when God delivered his people from Egypt.
And he transformed this sign into its fulfillment,
into the deliverance of the whole people of God,
everyone who ever lived,
or will ever live from the darkness of the true Egypt of sin
and the kingdom of the devil
and the bringing of the people of God into the kingdom of heaven.
Our Lord transformed the Old Testament sign
into the New Testament fulfillment of his suffering, death, and resurrection.
And he memorialized that event, that central event of human history,
in a Mass to be celebrated until the end of time.
So he gathered his apostles together in the upper room
and instituted the sacrament of our salvation.
And then from there he left with his apostles
and went to the garden of his suffering.
And then from there through the whole, all of the events of Good Friday.
And when he was risen from the dead on Easter Sunday,
his apostles were back in the Ascennacle
together with the Blessed Mother
and sort of bewildered and disappointed and sad,
perhaps desperate because of the events that had occurred.
So there was a sort of veil over their eyes,
though they had been prepared for what our Lord was to suffer
and had been prepared for the fact that he would rise from the dead.
Somehow the words of our Lord didn't have the effect
that our blessed Lord and Savior had wished.
In fact, he told them that he would send them the Holy Spirit
and that through the Holy Spirit,
the words that he had taught them would be reaffirmed and confirmed
and enlivened in their hearts.
And later on they would understand how they had failed our Lord
and how he had prepared them from the beginning.
And then all of that would bear fruit later on.
So today we read another,
one of the events that took place after our Lord's resurrection
and centered around the Ascennacle
where the first Mass had been celebrated.
It seemed like they always went back to the Ascennacle
from the time of Holy Thursday until Pentecost.
They went back to the Ascennacle after our Lord's suffering and death
when they were desperate.
They went to the Ascennacle when,
they had heard about the resurrection.
Mary Magdalene went to the Ascennacle.
As we read today, the disciples on the road to Emmaus
went back to the Ascennacle.
And thereafter, after our Lord's ascension,
they went back for the Novena, preparing for Pentecost.
And after Pentecost, they went forth.
But it was as though our Lord sent them back to the tabernacle,
to the altar.
And that is, in fact, what our Lord did.
He sent them back.
He sent them back to the place where he instituted the Blessed Sacrament.
And after all of the words of our Lord had been fulfilled
and he had given the apostles the mandate to do as he had taught them,
they would bring the Ascennacle everywhere around the world.
They would build the altar and the tabernacle
in every place where they went
in order to memorialize and commemorate
what our Lord had done for them.
And this is why we refer to the Holy Sacrifice and the Mass
and the Eucharist
as we refer to it as the mystery of faith.
Because our Lord teaches us
everything we need to know
in the celebration of the Mass
and in the reception of Holy Communion.
And it's a challenge to our faith, of course,
to believe in the Eucharist.
And there's many people who do not.
They don't believe that the Mass is a memorial
of our Lord's suffering and death.
Protestants sometimes think that we're recrucifying Jesus
in every sacrifice of the Mass,
which we're not.
Of course, we're present at the original
and one and only sacrifice of our Lord on Calvary.
And some people refer to our,
and unfortunately even Catholics sometimes,
refer to our worship of the Eucharist
as cookie worship,
you know, completely misunderstanding
and becoming impervious to the truth of our faith.
It is a challenge to our faith
and yet it is fundamental to everything that we do
that we should kneel before the sign
that our Lord has instituted
and worship our Lord
under the veil of his sacramental place.
Our Lord is truly present for us.
He speaks his word to us.
He gives his grace to us.
And yet at the same time,
he doesn't indulge all of our desires.
We would like to see him face to face.
We would like to converse with him
as perhaps the apostles did.
And even though our Lord conversed with them
in the first person
with words that they could hear,
with their physical ears,
it didn't change the fact
that when the chips were down
that they largely failed our Lord.
It wasn't until the apostles on the road to Emmaus
were at the Mass
where our Lord broke the bread with them
that he was revealed to them
as who he truly was.
On the road he was concerned,
even though he walked with them
and spoke to them about the scriptures.
And he said,
St. Luke tells us
that he opened the scriptures to them
just as he did to the apostles
in the upper room in the Cynical.
Again, the place where the Mass was celebrated
were told that
these are the words that I spoke to you
while I was with you,
that everything written about me
in the Law of Moses and the Prophets,
the Psalms must be fulfilled.
And then he opened their minds
to understanding the scriptures.
It was only at the moment,
that the bread was broken
with the disciples on the road to Emmaus
that they fully realized
who our Lord was
and how he had fulfilled the things
that had been promised from of old
and how all the words that he had spoken to them
came to pass.
And so somehow
in our worship of our Lord
and the Blessed Sacrament
and in our participation
in the Holy Sacrifice, the Mass,
we need to have our minds
and our hearts
elevated above our sinfulness,
our pride,
our self-centeredness,
our doubt,
and we need to see things
from God's point of view.
But in this life,
God's point of view
is again,
not exactly what we would like it to be.
We would like to see everything
as he sees it.
We would like to see things
as though we were in heaven right now.
We would like to see things
as though we were in heaven right now.
We would like to see things
We would like to see things
have things all lined up for us and all of our problems solved. And yet our Lord doesn't grant
us that in this life. What he grants us is his veiled presence. We look at the Eucharist and we
might think that it's, you know, when the church tells us that it's the body, blood, soul, and
divinity, that somehow things are not what they seem to be. But that's really not the case. It's
not so much that we look at the Eucharist and we see the presence of bread and wine and that it's
really not. It's that it's, the doctrine is, of course, that the bread and wine is changed
completely into the body, blood, and soul, and divinity. And all that remains are the visible,
tangible appearances of the bread and wine. Still the appearances remain, but the
substance remains.
The substance has been totally changed. And yet our Lord does come to us as food. And that's
why he veils himself under the appearances of bread and wine, because he is feeding us with
himself. And so it's not so much that it's not what it appears to be, it's more than it appears
to be. And life is that way as well. We can find ourselves in life,
frustrated or angry or disappointed or desperate, and in the midst of our vocation,
not fulfilling the demands of our vocation with joy and alacrity, because we only see
the defects of other people. We only see the trials and tribulations that we're experiencing
right now. We're not getting what we expected, what we wanted.
And that remains a great, you know, that remains, you know, like the only thing that we experience
and see. And yet our Lord chooses to remain veiled behind these circumstances. And his
providence remains embedded in our lives nonetheless. We sometimes are like the Jews
of the Old Testament who erroneously figured,
that God blessed those who had wealth and prosperity and cursed those who were poor and
destitute and barren. And sometimes God does give us temporal blessings in this world because he
needs, he wants to encourage us. But we can never make, you know, mathematical calculations about
the providence of God. Somehow, if my life is not going well, that God is angry with me.
We only need to be able to make mathematical calculations about the providence of God.
We only need to look at the lives of the saints to find out that that's not true.
Our Lord blessed those who he loved, whom he loved, with suffering and with crosses.
The life of Padre Pio, of course, bears witness to this.
Priest and prophet, a miracle worker, was a living crucifix and was persecuted both
by the powers of this world and the powers of hell because of his ministry of forgiving and bringing souls to God.
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, lay woman, gave herself and her heart completely to God and to her vocation to marriage and motherhood
and ended by being thrown out of her own household by her in-laws because of her fidelity to the Lord.
She was a scandal to them and a thorn in their conscience because they were living a worldly and sinful life and she wasn't.
And she suffered the consequences of being faithful to the Lord.
On the road to Calvary, our Lord met the holy women and he said to them,
if they do this to the wood while it is green, what will they do to it when it is green?
Scarab.
When the beauty of this tree is dry and our Lord prophesied to his apostles
and all his disciples that if they were to follow them, following him,
they were going to be treated the way he was treated.
They were going to suffer the things that he suffered.
And in one of the fundamental paradoxes but also truth of our faith is that we are blessed with the cross.
That we are sanctified with the suffering of our Lord.
death. Suffering, death, contradiction is turned on its head by our Lord. The worst sin that was
ever committed in the world was the murder of God. It was the worst thing that anybody could
possibly do. It was the worst thing that was ever done. And yet it wasn't only those who actually
pounded the nails into our Lord's flesh or screamed for his crucifixion on Good Friday
that were responsible for it. All of us were responsible for it. But somehow in the providence
of God, this was used as the very means of our salvation and sanctification so that what
apparently was a defeat, in fact, was nothing of the sort. And this was what our Lord rebuked his
apostles for. This is why he told the disciples on the road to Emmaus that they were slow,
dull of heart and dull of spirit to fail to believe in all the things that had been spoken
about our Lord. And this is why he questioned the apostles. He said, why are you troubled?
And he said, peace be with you. When he invoked peace upon them, they were terrified, it says.
They were startled and terrified. They thought he was a ghost. It was like they were totally
taken by surprise, not expecting it whatsoever. And they were filled with fear when they saw the
resurrected Lord because they were, in fact, dull of spirit. And they didn't perceive the fact that
what our Lord went through on Good Friday was our blessing and our salvation. Why do questions
arise in your heart? Look and see that my hands and my feet, that it is I myself, etc.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, have you anything here
to eat? And so he eats in front of them and confirms their vision that it is really him,
that he has risen from the dead. And this was something, of course, when they finally realized
it was their joy and their hope, their deliverance from darkness and despair and from disappointment.
It was something too good to be true. And so they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed,
and yet it was true. And that is true and real for each and every one of us as well.
In our own lives, wherever we find ourselves, our Lord is present and he is powerful and his grace
is transforming. And it's always and everywhere present, no matter where we are or what
circumstances we find ourselves in or what crosses we are bearing. This is the truth.
And this is the challenge of our faith, to believe this when the chips are down,
you know, when we're tempted to be frustrated or to run away from our cross or from our vocation,
when we are, you know, ready to give in to temptation. That is the moment when we have
to believe in the power of our Lord's resurrection. That is when our Lord can say to us,
uh, why are you slow?
Why are you slow to believe? Why are you troubled? Why do questions arise in your hearts?
It comes naturally that those things should happen, but we should be convicted within ourselves
that this is infidelity to the Lord. Our Lord has done so much for us. He has given us so much.
He has poured himself out so that we can be free from the burden of sin and from the limitations
of simply a natural way of living. And so we should be free from the burden of sin. And so we should
to have hope. We need to have confidence in God. We need to run freely as the children of God.
God wants us to be free. The children of God should be free. We should be
free to carry our cross with joy. We should be free to do our duty with,
not simply because we have to, but out of love. That's the grace that our Lord wants
us to have. And that's the grace that we, each and every one of us should ask for. So, today,
as our lord opens our minds to understand the scriptures we know that it is our destiny with
christ to suffer and to uh to be witnesses of the power of his resurrection we turn to our
blessed lady and we ask her that we might have the grace to do this that we might make the faith
real in the way that we live that people will see in us the cause of hope and of joy
and no matter where we are or or how how our lives are going that we always have
faith and hope we see beyond the veil we see beyond the circumstances of our lives
we see beyond the signs of the bread and wine and know and experience and receive
uh
the risen savior crucified for our sins and victorious over sin and death and
and our food and our joy in the eucharist
it is