As you may have gathered from my last couple of homilies, I recently had the blessing of spending a week in Germany and Austria with three priest buddies from my seminary days. I think the Lord knew we all needed a vacation, because the trip was nearly perfect: crisp autumn sunshine, beautiful hikes, great conversations, good prayer, the freshest sausages, schnitzels and strudels—and we even managed to pull off nine holes of golf in the breathtaking Alps!
 
Strangely enough, though, one of the most moving (and even spiritual) moments of the entire trip for me happened in a beer tent at Oktoberfest in Munich. I know it sounds crazy, but here me out!
 
We spent a Saturday afternoon at Hofbrauhaus, one of Oktoberfest’s most international beer tents. Around us were Germans, Italians, Irish, Spaniards, Argentinians, Americans, and people from who-knows-where-else—all wearing lederhosen and dirndls, raising one-liter steins, standing on benches and tables, throwing their arms around complete strangers, and singing at the top of their lungs. Apparently the whole world knows the words to “Country Roads” and “Sweet Caroline”!
 
But what struck me most wasn’t the beer or the music. It was the joy of seeing thousands of people from different countries, languages, backgrounds, and walks of life simply enjoying one another. For a few hours, nobody seemed especially interested in what divided us. And it made me realize how deeply human beings long for communion.
 
That can be easy to forget these days. Turn on the news and the story of humanity often seems to be violence, corruption, dishonesty, anger, hatred, fraud, and division. If that is all we consume, we can start to lose hope in the human race.
 
But in reality, deep down, we simply want to belong. We want peace. We want friendship. We want to celebrate together. We want to love and be loved. We want to be one. We are all made for relationship and wired for communion.
 
Jesus wants that for us too. On the night before He died, He prayed for His disciples: “that they may all be one.” And this is where the camaraderie of an Oktoberfest can only take us so far. John Denver, Neil Diamond, and a liter of German beer can produce a remarkable amount of temporary unity—but they are only a faint echo of something much greater.
 
Every time we gather for Mass, God does something infinitely more profound. He gathers people of every age, personality, background, opinion, struggle, and story around one altar. Then He gives us not merely a shared experience, but Himself. In the Eucharist, Christ actually makes us one Body!
 
The question is whether we allow that gift to change us. If we receive the Body of Christ while contributing to division through gossip, resentment, impatience, judgment, selfishness, or stubbornness, something is out of place. The Eucharist should slowly make us people who heal what is broken rather than deepen the cracks.
 
Christians are meant to be leaven in the world—people whose love, sacrifice, service, forgiveness, and prayer reflect Christ’s love and help draw others together. So perhaps this week we can ask the Lord to reveal whatever division has crept into our own hearts and give us the grace to surrender it.
 
Because the deepest desire of the human heart is not ultimately to cheers steins and stand arm-in-arm on a table belting the “bah, bah, bahs” of “Sweet Caroline.” It is to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the saints, rejoicing together in the victory of Christ—and discovering at last the perfect communion for which we were made.

Fr. Mike
Pastor

Thursday, November 12
6:00 PM
Regan Hall

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Monday, November 16
7:00 PM
Regan Hall

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