Third Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2021 – Acts 3:13-15; 1 John 2:1-5A; Luke 24:35-48

“And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain. My friend, I’ll say it clear. I’ll state my case of which I’m certain. I lived a life that’s full. I traveled each and every highway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.” So this song is a journey song. “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do. I saw it through, without exemption. I planned a charted course, each careful step along the byway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.”

Frank Sinatra was not what most people considered an exemplary Catholic. Just like the other big crooner of his generation, Bing Crosby, Frank played a priest in at least two movies. In one of them, he was your friendly neighborhood pastor, and in the other one he was a troubled man on mission in a place about to be destroyed. But he divorced his first wife, married at least two more times. He was a known associate of criminals. And he appeared, at times, to have a violent streak. What most people may not know about him is that, later on in his life, he reconciled with the church, very quietly, was able to get a decree of nullity, married his last wife. His charitable giving, which had been extravagant, but hit and miss, became much more consistent, much more generous. And he died a respected public figure and a loyal son of the church.

The song, originally in French, was given English lyrics by Paul Anka. It was recorded not only by Frank Sinatra, but also by Elvis Presley. But it is a pagan song in the sense that it is stoic. That’s the way it is. This is what I did. I own it. In today’s society we frequently use the common expressions “I can’t un-see that.” “I can’t un-hear that.“ Today we’re going to talk about the alternative to the stoic acceptance of the status quo.

We have to understand what’s going on in the first reading. As near as we can tell, the community of the writer of the letters of John and, probably, the writer of the gospel of John as well, was a broken community. It was broken over something that hardly phases us today. And that is whether or not Jesus could truly be human, or whether or not Jesus could truly be divine. When the gospel was preached to the pagan peoples of the Mediterranean, most of them not only spoke Greek as their common language, as their business language, but also embraced the wider philosophies of the Greek speaking peoples. It was the culture of the time. In that culture there was the belief that the gods were totally separate from human beings, and, if we wanted to leave this veil of pain that was human life, we had, somehow or other, to gain secret knowledge that would give us a claim on the divinities. And they began to see Jesus as one of those gods who could give us the secret. And, they believed that the secret came through baptism. Once a person was baptized, he was “in the know,” so to speak. He was exempt from any kind of strife or trying in this human life. He was among the enlightened. Of course, this wayward theory of who Jesus was, threatened to break apart the Christian communities. That was happening in John’s community. Those who felt that way left the community, because they had no respect for or regards for those who believed that Jesus could actually have suffered and died for our sins. And this broke the hearts, and boggled the minds, of those few who remained faithful, who, of course, turned on their brothers with righteous anger. And so, John writes this letter to talk about the mistakes of both sides of the community. And so today’s letter begins with, “My little children, do not sin. But, if you do sin, you have an advocate before the Father.” He says this because of the sin that’s taking place within the community. The double sin of heresy and the unwillingness to forgive those who are in the wrong.

We turn from that to in today’s gospel. Remember last week, when we had the story of Jesus appearing in the upper room, saying, “Peace be with you,” giving people the power to forgive sins. Then Thomas shows up, too late. And Thomas refuses to believe. And then Jesus comes to him, in the midst of the others, and does the same thing. He says, “Peace be with you,” and then offers physical proof that He’s alive. And I had asked you, was that one story or two. I told you it was really one story, with two episodes. Reaching a climax with Thomas’ words of acknowledgement.

The same thing is true of today’s gospel. In the year A, we read what happened on the road to Emmaus. Two disciples left Jerusalem, got an education on their way to Emmaus, recognized Jesus when he sat down to break bread using the Eucharistic formula. Then they ran back in the middle of the night, back to Jerusalem. That’s where our story picks up today. Where they run back to Jerusalem, and find out the same experience they had, four or five miles away, of the risen Christ, also took place that morning in Jerusalem. And then, to confound them further, the same experience takes place right in their midst. Jesus appears and says, “Peace be with you,” and then gives them an opportunity to test His physicality. This is one story as well. Why is it one story? Because it starts off with an episode that is a journey story. They leave Jerusalem to go out, but they go out ill-equipped for their journey. Once they touch Jesus, in the breaking of the bread, they go back and touch Him again, in the story of His crucifixion and resurrection. The words that they’re greeted with as they walk into the upper room are, “It is true. He has risen, and has appeared to Simon.” And Jesus comes and says “Look. Look at My hands and feet. Touch Me and see.” Most people don’t see the connection between the fruits of the resurrection and our sinfulness. The connection is in the touching, in the touching.

There is a great little commercial on TV. It’s an M&Ms commercial. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but the plot line of the commercial is watching people get rewarded for something good they’ve done, by having someone throw them a package of M&Ms. And it’s little vignettes that take about two or three seconds each. One of those vignettes, that goes by so quickly that if you blink you miss it, is a guy coming out of a confessional and he opens the priest’s door in the confessional, he throws the priest the bag of M&Ms, and he says to him, ”I’m sorry you had to hear that.” That’s what most people think, that priests hate hearing people’s sins. But that’s not really true.
We love to sit in the confessional. I’ve been a priest 52 years. Many of the finest moments of my ministry have been spent in confession, reuniting people with the double truth that Jesus is truly sacrificed for our sins, and truly risen for our redemption.

I said, at the beginning of my homily, that “My Way” is a pagan song, because it deals with human frailty, our own frailty, in terms of just sucking it up, and saying, “Ok, I guess I have to live with this. I have to own it.” Whereas the opposite is true. God is the one who un-sees, and un-hears things for us.

I’ll end with a couple of confession stories from my childhood. Back then, most parishes heard confessions on Saturday afternoon from 4 to 6, and Saturday night from 7 to 8:30, because there was no such thing as an anticipated Mass on Saturday night. And the lines for confession were long, everywhere. In the parish where I lived, the pastor was a national war hero. There’s a statue of him in Times Square - Father Duffy. He wound up, at the end of his life, pastor of our parish. He got so old, that he rarely, if ever, said Mass outside of his own room. On state occasions he was sort of carried out into the sanctuary, and plopped there, just to be there. But, every now and then, he would come out to hear confessions. If he did, people would flock to his confessional, because he was as deaf as a doorknob.

One of our younger priests, a nice guy, was known for a hair trigger temper. And when he would be hearing confessions in the afternoon, sometimes you’d be on another line somewhere, and you’d hear coming from his box, “You did what?” Of course, when that happened, the poor person behind the curtain would come out about two feet high.

One of the priests, who lived in our parish, wasn’t a parish priest; he worked someplace else. But he lived in our parish, and he was known to be very good at dealing with teenagers. Now, back then, it was a big deal if you even got as far as second base. And so, kids were very frightened to go to confession once they reached adolescence. But, the rumor was that this guy was nice. Well, we used to be taken, as a group, to confession, once a month by the nuns. Taken down from the school, into the church, and lined up at the confessionals, so there’d be an equal number of kids at each confessional. (God forbid Father should be inconvenienced.) Well, one of our teachers, in seventh and eighth grade, was more savvy about what was going on in teenagers’ lives once they reached the age of twelve or thirteen. And she came, one day, to each confession line, when this one priest happened to come in to hear our confessions. And she whispered very quietly to the children at each line, “You don’t have to stay on this line. You can go to any priest you want.” And, all of a sudden, this whole flock of boys went over to the one confessional where this priest was, who was rumored to be very nice to errant teenagers. So - confession stories. Nowadays, there are no more long lines for confession. People, apparently, would rather live with the consequences of what they’ve done. Regrets, regrets. Rather than allow God to un-hear, and un-say what they’ve heard.

I’m sorry you had to hear that. No I’m not. Regrets, I’ve had more than a few.