This past Tuesday the Latin students at Pope Francis Prep, with their teacher, joined me for a period of Eucharistic Adoration to pray a decade of the rosary in Latin. But they didn’t just simply recite the Ave Maria, their teacher chanted verses of the Lord’s Passion in Latin – after each verse, we prayed the Ave Maria, then closed by chanting the Tantum Ergo and I offered Benediction. Later that day, the priests of the diocese gathered with Bishop Byrne for the Chrism Mass. Bishop spoke to us about the nature of the priesthood, what we have been ordained to do… to preach the Truth, to speak boldly of reality of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and to seek virtue and holiness in our own lives as we strive to lead others on the same path…  It was particularly moving and brought me back to my time in seminary in Rome… it brought me back to a place where I encountered the Lord frequently and in profound ways … it brought me back to the place where He called me to follow Him …

          Of particular interest is what the now Risen Lord says to Mary Magdalene – “go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee…” Why Galilee? He could see them wherever and whenever He so pleased? Why Galilee? Let’s remember that it was at the Sea of Galilee where the disciples first met Him. It was their first place of encounter… He tells them to go back to that place where they first met, where He first called them and began to form them as His own … where He began to form them for their mission … that first place of encounter… They need to see that He is real, that He is alive … and that He loves them. And there is no better place to do that than where they first met… Another point to consider is that He calls them ‘brothers’ – “go and tell my brothers…” – implying that He has forgiven the sin of their denial and abandonment of Him in His final hours … especially that of Peter – St. John’s Gospel beautifully recalls Peter’s second confession of faith…

          In the language of Jesus – Aramaic – the word ‘remember’ is ‘dakar’ … it does not mean to simply rifle through files in your head … it is to remember with purpose…. It employs your mind, hands, feet, and lips to engage in whatever the remembering requires… Biblical remembering is a bodily activity, not merely an exercise of the mind…. Why is that so important? – Because we forget… We can get so easily lost in our own world, we can get so easily distracted by our daily lives and routines, we can be caught up in the attractiveness of the world and worldly “values” – especially those that conflict and are incompatible with our Catholic faith … we forget … and as such, God gets sidelined, He becomes a distant memory … we forget to a point that makes it seem like He isn’t even real … We need to remember …

          Can you recall a time when you had a real encounter with Jesus? Maybe it was in confession, or in adoration, a visit to the Church, or at Mass? It could have been last week or decades ago … the point it is – as Jesus tells His disciples – we need to go back there because it is in that act of remembering where the Risen Lord appears to us … where He reminds us of who He is, of His love for us… that He is real … He is Truth … It is in that act of remembering where we can bring Him back into focus in our lives – it is that place that reminds us of a time when we loved Him and were poised to serve Him … to remember with purpose … because from there He calls us to follow Him, from there He calls to fidelity to His teaching, His values … fidelity to Him over and above all else … We need to remember because we need Him in our lives… We need to remember because the resurrection of Jesus Christ reminds of our need for His mercy and that He more powerful than our sins … that we are not ourselves without Him … We need to go back to Galilee to remember that Jesus Christ was crucified, died and was raised from the dead for you and for me … May that act of remembering help us from this day forward, hold on to Him and never let go.