Weekly message
from Fr. Chris

Dear SPA Family,
Today we stand before God and before the various situations of our lives in exactly the same condition as those two disciples on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. How often we are absorbed in our own affairs, with hearts filled with sadness and senselessness, and perhaps even with some resistance of our hearts. In such a situation, as in the case of apostles, disappointment and despair arise, because we expected something else, because everything that happens to us was supposed to be different, because something ended ... Depressed by the weight of misunderstanding, the feeling of abandonment and loneliness, thus sometimes we do not pay attention to God and His all-encompassing presence.

The Gospel reminds us that it is to such disciples and to their situation that Jesus enters, bringing his resurrection, his grace that makes them discover something they did not expect to experience and that they will be able to start anew with him.
Jesus accompanies them, listens to them, explains to them, inflames them with God’s word, and finally stays with them and makes himself known to them. It’s good to see such a Jesus stopping by my life, my vocation, and my heart today.

Humanity today is tempted to take the road to Emmaus in the face of all the adversities we face. Emmaus is a place of seeking relief, a place that is not demanding, it is a certain reality of an unreal world where one seeks an escape from what is difficult, and inconvenient, from what costs and hurts. It is a paradise on earth without the cross and suffering.
The risen Christ points to the attitude of disciples whose hearts are slow to believe in everything that the prophets taught. Jesus emphasizes that sometimes it is very easy to selectively understand and apply to ourselves the words of the Lord. The disciples going to Emmaus want to measure everything by their measure of benefit, success, and glory.

Therefore, the Risen Lord invites them – and with them each of us – to patiently relate the history of their lives to God’s word. God wants from us to read and understand what happens to us in the light of His word. It is certainly not an easy task, but it is necessary to discover God in our midst and for life to be filled with his resurrection.

Two disciples teach us today what it means to keep Jesus close to us, especially in the face of the various difficulties of daily life. Their gesture of stopping Christ is a sign of opening their daily lives to Him and offering Him what they have.
May our road to Emmaus be filled with vigilance for the signs of the Risen and for His loving presence.
Have a blessed Easter Season, Fr. Chris

Dear SPA Family,
How easy it is to get lost? One of the contemporary Polish philosophers, Zygmunt Bauman living in Great Britain wrote a series of books on the so-called, liquid reality. Everything seems to be so fluid, so unstable: society, culture, time, economy, concepts of man, family, marriage, ethics or religion, and with it the concept of God Himself. How easy it is to get lost in this fluid, modern reality. And perhaps we have already experienced it in a sense.

Israel, the People of God who experienced the miracles of liberation and crossing the Red Sea, was also lost. Despite the fact that during the whole journey they were looking at God’s presence in the form of a pillar of fire and a cloud, it was so easy that they not only broke down in faith, but also demanded that Aaron melt a new idol, a golden calf, a remembrance of the Egyptian gods.
How easy it is today to be captured by the ideology of individualism and independence from traditional values: family, church, or traditions. It is the attitude of a sheep that has separated from the herd, perhaps by inadvertence, perhaps by the lure of other pastures, perhaps by the neglect of the shepherd, or perhaps by the indifference of the herd itself.

How easy it is in the daily routine of pursuing so many things to lose somewhere some coins, which were so necessary for the economic maintenance of the house. How many misfortunes, diseases, depression or even suicide were caused by economic difficulties. It is not difficult to understand the attitude of a woman who spared no efforts to find two coins.
How easy it is to get lost for someone who, like the young man, believes that he has the right to an inheritance, sufficient knowledge, strength and the courage of youth to go his own way.
This Sunday Gospel reminds us of Jesus’ three parables about the lost sheep, the lost coins, and the lost son who squandered a father’s fortune. But above all, they are parables about God’s mercy. In the parables of mercy:
Jesus reveals the nature of God as the nature of a Father who never claims to be defeated until He makes sin disappear and rejection through compassion and mercy.
God, rich in mercy and faithful to the covenant, once again comes to meet those who, like the people from Mount Sinai, for some reason have departed from Him. The experience of forgiveness releases the joy of the heart which sings: “For his mercy endures forever” Ps 135.
A God rich in mercy, like a good shepherd, follows in the footsteps of those who have lost their way in life and may have lost its meaning. He follows them to take them in his arms and joyfully leads them to safe pastures.
A God rich in mercy, like a responsible hostess and housewife, seeks to find those who have gone astray, busy with hundreds of things, and who are as precious to Him as this biblical coin, which we should rejoice in finding.
God, rich in mercy, in Christ turns his face of mercy to those who have turned away from him, and with paternal love and true joy He embraces them, and renews in them their lost and filial dignity. Have a blessed week. Fr. Chris