Pastor's Letter

WALKING WITH US

This weekend we should have been celebrating First Holy Communion. The children and their families were very much looking forward to this celebration, as were all of us.  Whenever someone receives communion for the first time, the angels sing.
 
Now, like so many other things, it’s time to wait. 
 
It has touched my heart these days, because it’s really become our longing, too.  We all want to receive communion.  We desire more than anything to be back in our “always place” at the Mass we enjoy going to, and to resume the very thing that as Catholics we treasure—the moment we receive Christ’s touch in our hearts and souls by receiving the Eucharist.
 
So our longing for communion is the same longing the children are feeling right now, as well as all those in our RCIA and CMI programs. We’re waiting to be fully alive with Christ.
 
That’s why the moment we do return will be like the first moment we received Communion.  It will be a moment of waiting finally fulfilled, and our hearts are burning for it.
 
The description of a heart “burning” to describe an experience of Jesus Christ is found in the gospel today—Luke’s account of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  The two are walking away from Jerusalem, which means away from the events of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. 
 
But here’s the meaningful thing: Jesus joined them as they walked to turn them around. They didn’t recognize they were with Christ, even though their hearts were burning within…until he took bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them.  As Luke tells us, “With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Luke 24:31).  It’s the exact same way we recognize him in our world today, too.
 
Jesus is walking with us, even if we may not recognize it right now.  He’s slowing opening our eyes in ways we need to see him at work—through the scripture and the good things we do for one another. And if our hearts are burning within us, with a strong desire to have communion, then it’s a sign: we’re seeing how important our relationship with Jesus Christ is.
 
Easter is the moment of recognition that Christ truly is with us.  We may have to wait right now for that moment of total communion, but the waiting isn’t empty. It’s illuminating us, strengthening us, and leading us. It’s leading us to know who it is we need in our life more than anything. 
 
May God continue to walk with us, and show us the way, day by day.
 
     --Fr. Mike