A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. The disciples recounted what had happened on the road to Emmaus and how they had recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. While they were still speaking about all of this, Jesus himself stood in their midst and said to them, peace be to you. In their panic and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. Jesus said to them, why are you disturbed?
Why do such ideas cross your mind? Look at my hands. Look at my feet. It is really I. Touch me and see that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as I have.
As Jesus said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. They were still incredulous for sheer joy and wonder. So he said to them, have you anything to eat? They gave him a piece of cooked fish, which he took and which he ate in their presence. Then Jesus said to them, recall those words that I spoke to you when I was still with you.
Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms had to be fulfilled. Then Jesus opened their minds. That's very, very mysterious business. Then Jesus opened their minds to the understanding of the scriptures. In other words, they it their minds were closed until he opened them.
We don't have the key. Very mysterious. Then Jesus said to them, thus it is written that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. In his name, penance for the remission of sins is to be preached to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You all are witnesses to all of this, and this is the gospel, the good news of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. If there's anything clear about the resurrection of our lord, it is this. It brings absolutely to the forefront the kind of person, the kind of thing we are. And it's you see, it's so easy to forget who we are and what we are. So easy.
There are so many tangible things pulling us away from what we actually are and ought to be and are destined to be, something pulling us away from all of that into something else, something else. We say we are we are resurrection Christians, and hallelujah is our song. What do you mean when you say you're a resurrection Christian? It doesn't mean you have been initiated into a kappa gamma cow or something. You see, if you have noticed in the last ten or twelve oh, no.
The last twenty years, how our religion has become man centered as opposed to god centered. You ask a young man, I as I experienced within hours, well, days now, why don't you go to mass on Sunday? I don't get anything out of it. Why did you leave your wife after a year of marriage? I am speaking from absolute experience right in this parish.
Why did you leave your wife after one year of marriage? I didn't want to be married anymore. We are in the last twenty years, we have thanks to our some of our great leaders, we have become a man centered religion in many ways. We have eliminated the word that the priest has been now come now to have be has become the presire, which isn't even English. We don't have the holy sacrifice of the mass.
We have a celebration. We don't have the holy sacrament of penance. We have it now reconciliation. Me, I'm being reconciled. Penance means god.
The church used to be a very solemn place where people didn't it were very it was very hushed. Now we say it's a hall. It's a community. In the most solemn part of the mass, we have this thing called the kiss of peace, and the whole congregation breaks up. This is what we're living with.
You see how man centered all this is, including woman? And it's the Catholic church. None of this stuff is is authorized in the real sense of the word. You read the inter you heard the opening prayer today. What does baptism do?
It's a transformation. If any of you remember your first year of biology, you will remember the word metamorphosis. I think it's the first Greek word I remember meeting. And how it was impressed upon us how you have complete metamorphoses and incomplete. Metamorphosis simply means change.
And we were given the examples of the tadpole, which goes from a tiny little egg, which we actually did this in our lab, and then we saw how it went through the different changes and became the great bullfrog. The holy Roman Catholic church from the very beginning of its existence, the earliest text we have, By baptism, we are transformed. We are made new men and new women, new. You're not joining the KOC or the Masons. Baptism isn't just an introductory write into something else.
It's a complete change from what you are into what you ought to be and which Christ died and rose from the dead to ensure that you would be. It's in virtue of his resurrection that as many text says say, we die in baptism to rise to Christ. Change. Absolutely changed. It's like taking a dog and all of a sudden having him speak very good English and having an intellect and a will.
It's even greater than that. Greater than that. Because with baptism, we get a whole new purpose. We get a whole new destiny. We are transformed.
We are totally metamorphosized. I'm not exaggerating this a bit, and it drives me up the wall to see what has been happening in the holy Roman Catholic church, how we have been transformed very quietly in many ways by a handful of loudmouths. That's what it boils down to. And so during this Easter season, I have tried to bring home to you the reality. I mean, the historical fact event of the risen Christ.
I am well aware of the arguments against it. Well aware, and they're serious. I'm not denying that at all. But when you say, I believe in god almighty, maker of heaven and earth, what have you said? How do you know that?
When you say, god made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him in the next, how do you know that? What is your certitude about that? Because if you accept that, you are accepting a program that's going to transform your life. It's a very serious decision. But you see, from the very beginning, when you say I believe in god, you're talking about something unworldly.
You're not talking about your peers, your neighbors, these dear brethren what we're supposed to love so much, you're talking about God. And until you begin loving God, you're not going to begin loving your neighbor. Because if Dostoevsky has anything to say, and he said it very clearly, is take God out of the picture. Take immortality out of the picture. Take take the whole idea of Christianity out of the picture, and who can love his neighbor?
They're not lovable. Some of them are, a few, and it's temporary. So let's not let's not pull back from the idea that there's a god and that there's things that happen that only god can do. In other words, the supernatural. Let's not be afraid of the supernatural because, my dear friends, that is your real world, the supernatural.
You are resurrection Christians, Christians, and praise god, hallelujah, is your song because of the resurrection. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.