The 13th station of the Eucharist, the Road to Emmaus. O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, All praise and all Thanksgiving, Be every moment Thine. I want to thank you for pressing play because this station of the Eucharist is powerful. And in fact, it's my favorite. The Road to Emmaus, Luke chapter 24, reveals to us the power of the resurrection. Maybe you've never seen or heard or had this station explained to you. But once you understand this, it changes everything. You see, there are two disciples and they believed Jesus. They followed Jesus. And yet they had turned and walked away. They're walking away from Jerusalem. And Jesus, disguised, starts walking with them. And he asked some questions, "Where are you going?" And they say, "Are you the only person who hasn't heard what's happened in Jerusalem?" About Jesus, a teacher—notice how he doesn't call him Lord, a teacher mighty indeed, how he died, and now the tomb has been found empty. And we thought that he was the one that was going to redeem us. Jesus hears this and he says—well, let me explain some things from the scripture. And it says that he began to unpack all of the ways that the scriptures referred to the Christ.

And what do you think Jesus was talking about as he walked along the way with them? When Jesus led this first Bible study, what references to the Old Testament, which was the only scriptures they had at the time, do you think he chose to make reference to himself? Well, I think many of them would have been some of the 14 stations of the Eucharist that we've already covered. Abel, who offered the unblemished spotless lamb and how he is the unblemished spotless lamb, how Abraham offered a replacement sacrifice, an adult male lamb with a crown of thorns on his head. How the Passover lamb had to be eaten and the blood had to be separated to save them from death and from slavery.

As they heard these biblical truths being poured out before them, their hearts were burning within them. And they begged him, stay with us. Stay with us, Lord. Stay with us tonight. He acted like he was going on, but decided to stay. And then it says, "At that night, while at table, he took bread and he broke it." And then they recognized him. They recognized him when in the breaking of the bread. But now let's go back to the mass because in the 12th station, which was the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and said, "This is my body." And when the supper was ended, he took a chalice and said, "This is my blood, which is shed, which is poured out for you." That's death. When you separate body from blood, you have death. And now what happens on this Easter night, in this resurrection appearance, on the very night that Jesus rose from the dead, he breaks bread and they recognize him in the breaking of the bread. So what happens at mass? The priest in the name of Jesus, in the voice of Jesus "This is my body, this is my blood," and we have death. We pray the Our Father. The priest says a prayer of peace. And then the priest breaks the bread, which is his body. And he takes a fragment of it and he puts it into the chalice. And what happens when you take body and blood and you put them back together? You have resurrection. And on that Easter night, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Mary, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world breaks bread and they recognize him. Who do they recognize? The resurrected Lord. And what happens at every mass? We start chanting. "Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us. Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us. Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us." Lamb of God, Lamb of Abel, Lamb of Abraham, Lamb of the Passover, the Lamb that John the Baptist points out at the River Jordan. And then what does the priest do? The priest takes into his hands and says, "Behold the Lamb of God." Who is this Lamb of God? It's the resurrected Lord. Were not our hearts burning within us? We recognized Him in the breaking of the bread. And those two disciples who encounter the resurrected Lord and the breaking of the bread run back into Jerusalem and share that news with all those that they have met. My brothers and sisters, every mass we encounter the separation of the body and blood of our Lord, but we also encounter the co-mingling where the bread and wine are brought together and we experience the resurrection of Christ and we call him our Lamb of God. And yet in a world of brokenness, in a world of noise, in a world of confusion, it's hard to have faith. And that's why it's so important. I just want to encourage you to live this resurrection moment, no matter where you're at. And I know that there is darkness in your life. I know that there is hurt in your heart. I know that there's struggles in your family. To know that Christ who has died in the separation of his body and his blood, that Christ has risen. And Christ wants to come again into your heart. I want to encourage you just to place your hand in your heart. Allow yourself to feel your heart beating. I just want you to breathe. I want you to hear God claim you as his son, as his daughter, as his child. I just want you to slowly pray. "Lord, increase my faith in your true presence. Lord, increase my faith in your true presence. You who died on the cross for me. You who rose from the grave for me. You who gave us the Eucharist the night before you died. You who celebrated the first mass on Easter night. Dear Lord, increase my faith. Amen."

The 14th Station of the Eucharist, the wedding feast of the Lamb. O sacrament is holy, O Sacrament divine, I'll praise in all Thanksgiving, be every moment vine. Thanks be to God for continuing to click play, for making it on this journey. We are at the 14th station. We are at the ultimate destination, which is the wedding feast of the lamb. In Revelation 19, we are so blessed to hear about the lamb who weddings a bride, who marries a bride, who is dressed in fine white linen garments.

I want to tell you about a wedding that I did just last weekend. It was a wedding for a young girl that I had met when she was 7 years old, who now was 29 years old and marrying the love of her life. When I had met her at 7, her parents were preparing her for first holy communion. I remember speaking to her parents, who'd become very entrenched in studying St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body. I remember after she made her first holy communion, her parents saying, "We never understood what happened when all of our other children made their first communion." This wasn't her just being initiated into the Catholic faith. This wasn't her just taking another step in her life. This was her receiving her groom, receiving her spouse, receiving the one who made her and the one that she would live with forever in heaven. Remember the dad saying her white dress was not just a white dress, she was a bride. As a young seminarian, I was enthralled by their enthusiasm and their understanding of what happens at every mass. At every mass, Jesus Christ, the eternal groom, enters into us who are his bride, the church. At this wedding mass, I asked the mom and dad if they had the bride's baptismal garment, if they still had her first communion dress, and they did. During my homily, I had servers hold up her baptismal garment when she first became a baptized Christian. Had a server hold up her first communion gown, her first communion gown as a reminder, the first time that she took Jesus into her very body. And then I had the bride stand up next to her groom. And I made reference to the fact that she is now marrying a man who is called to be an image of Christ as she is called to be an image of the church.

The mystical marriage, the marriage of Christ in His church, which we find, of course, yes, in the sacrament of holy matrimony, but we find it every single mass. This mystery is profound. God loves us so much that He would die for us. God loves us so much that He did die for us and He gives us that gift and that mystery at every mass. And because He loves us so much, we have the opportunity when we're in the right state of grace, we have the opportunity to receive Him. We have the opportunity to run to our groom and to become one with Him on earth, which is a foretaste of the wedding feast of heaven which is what we hear about in this 14th station of the Eucharist, the wedding feast of the Lamb. This is why the church dresses up her infants in white on the day of their baptism. It's why girls wear white dresses and boys wear white shirts on the day of their first holy communion. It's why we have wedding dresses that are white. And that's why, at the end of our lives, when our bodies are brought to the church, a white garment called a Paul is unfolded upon us and we are dressed in white. Why? Because we are all part of the body of Christ. We are all part of his church, which is his bride. And every mass is a wedding feast. The union of husband and wife, the union of groom and bride, which brings life. What a gift. You are never closer to any of your loved ones than when you are at holy mass. And we receive holy communion, and we are in union with them. Your loved ones that are living, but also your loved ones that are deceased who participate eternally in the wedding feast of the Lamb. You are not alone. You are not alone. And that's why holy mass is one of the most intimate moments of our whole entire lives. Jesus matters. The Lamb matters. Marriage matters.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that marriage and family are the building block of society and the world. They are one of the greatest gifts that God has given to the church. What marriages have blessed you? I want you to spend some time today just being thankful for the gift of marriage. What marriages have blessed you? Because God has ordained that marriage would be the building block of society and the world. Was it your parents' marriage, your grandparents' marriage, the neighbors who lived next door? I need to be honest here though. Because God has ordained that marriage would be a clear symbol of his love for us, marriage is also unbelievably painful, attacked by Satan, and can also bring about terrible wounds in people's lives. For those of you who have experienced those wounds in your life, you are not alone. God loves you, and his intimate love for you in the marriage feast and the wedding feast of heaven, may it be your healing grace, your redeeming grace, your saving grace.

Let's be thankful together for the gift of marriage, the gift of bride and groom. May we realize that we as church—we as the church are bride. Called to intimacy, called to union, called to life. May we live in that gratitude and one day live the wedding feast of the Lamb. Amen.