 rather than sisters. You have indeed come to the height of your experience. This is as good as it gets indeed. Usually when we start with mass, I tell people, you know, it's all downhill from here because you start with the best but you're ending with the best, which is good. And it's also important to start with the mass because it is the source and summit of our faith. The readings today I want to touch upon a little bit and bring out something that I find central at least as an answer to the questions being posed. The first reading come from Ecclesiastes which is a strange book, a very interesting, is typically placed after Proverbs and before Song of Songs and it's kind of a trio usually looked at as sort of representing the illuminative, purgative and the unitive ways in the Christian life. But what is it talking about? Saying everything is vanity. It seems to be so down, it's so despairing of a book. And in the tradition, Dr. John Bergsma goes through this in his commentaries on the Sunday readings, the word of the Lord, I believe it's the series is called. And it's really beautiful actually. It could be looked on as a sort of thought experiment as to what would happen, how you would end up if you were to simply prioritize material things and earthly things. You would end up indeed in great despair as the author seems to be. It's also called a phenomenological text. It describes things as they seem to the one who might not necessarily have God as priority. It's also sort of considered the proclamation of the bad news so that the good news can come and Jesus being the fullness and being the answer to all questions and problems, the gospel can come in and answer this problem of Kohalif. And so this is it. So yes, so this text of Ecclesiastes indeed poses a problem when we are seeking for our fulfillment, for our happiness in earthly things. We will never find it. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that. We will only find it in the beatific vision and being one with God. And so the Psalm responds to tell us that the word is being spoken to us today. And if we hear today the word, do not harden our hearts. Harden not your hearts. What is the word being spoken? St. Paul tells us in the second reading to search for the things above. Search for things above, not below. And even though the second reading wasn't specifically chosen in order to match the theme of the first because we're going through a continuous reading of Colossians, nonetheless, it couldn't have been better put together to match the theme of the first reading, which as it looks upon the earthly things, it falls into despair. And the second reading tells us, well, don't look for your happiness in those earthly things. Look for them above in heaven, in Christ himself who is risen and with whom we too are risen. And now we get to the gospel and these guys are fighting as always and they tell Jesus, could you go ahead and cut through this and tell my brother, because I'm right in a fight, I'm always right, tell it, would you tell him how I'm right? And he needs to share his inheritance with me. And Jesus is like, who made me your judge? And then takes the opportunity to tell them about something even greater, that we're fighting for earthly things. We're killing for earthly things. We're waging war for earthly things. We make enemies of friends for earthly goods. And yet our eyes are to be turned to heavenly realities. It is a sad thing when someone is rich, fills up his barn with all sorts of wealth, and yet is poor spiritually, poor in the heavenly things, Jesus says. Now he doesn't bash wealth, wealth is a very good thing. I run a little mission called mission to the beloveds and nonprofit work in Haiti. We've got some friends and wonderful benefactors here from heart and many others who are monthly donors to mission to the beloved. I'm happy for that. I'm happy for your wealth. I'll take it any day to serve the poor. Our mission is to preach the gospel and serve the poor. So wealth is not a bad thing. It's a very good thing. And I want you to keep making it in healthy ways, of course, so that you can keep giving it. And isn't it what it's for, actually? It is indeed to be given. It is made so that it is given for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. It's very easy, really. Hard to detach from, but it is a good principle. You can keep some for yourself as well, a little bit. No. But Jesus wants to teach us about the treasure, the greatest treasure. And I want to talk to you for a moment about this greatest treasure. The Eucharist, my dear brothers and sisters, is the absolute greatest treasure to be received and to be given. There's a young lady in my parish in Haiti, I'm at St. Ancestrian's Cathedral. She was, I believe, 12 or 13 at the time, a couple of years ago. She came to our school, our Catholic school. We believe in education and we think we can change things around through the good Catholic education. So not only do we have our school at the main parish, but we have a little school in every church that is connected to our parish. Our parish has five churches, so we have five schools. We start with kindergarten and we meet inside the churches and we try to grill them and every year we have to add a classroom and eventually they're gonna outgrill the churches so we have to start building classrooms. But one classroom at a time, one student at a time, the Lord is gonna take us to where we need to go. This young lady came to our school, not Catholic. She was Baptist. But somehow she began to learn about the Eucharist and then she saw the joy of the other students who come to Mass and she sees as she hears the teachings of the gospel and this little girl falls in love with the Eucharist. Again, she's not Catholic, she's Baptist. She goes to church down the road and so she comes to my brother priest whom I have as the director of the school. He tells him, I want to receive communion. And he tells her, well, you'd have to be Catholic. Well, make me Catholic. I want to receive the Eucharist. And so it's tricky because her parents are not quite on board and she's still a minor and we can't just deal her and secretly give her the Eucharist. So we'll say, well, how do we work this out? And so we tell her, be a good child to your mother, to your dad, and you can ask them if it's possible for you to come to formation in Bible study and eventually, hopefully you can make it to be initiated. And she says, oh, I don't know if I can do that because I don't think my mother will agree. She will not allow me to do this. She doesn't like the Catholic Church very much. So we said, okay, well, we need to keep praying about this and that the Lord may open the way for you to come. So a year goes by and the next year she says, I really need to receive communion. And so we say, well, we're gonna keep praying on this. So we said, how about this? Why don't you invite your mother to a meeting with us and we'll sit together, we'll discuss it. She goes, oh boy, but I'll do it. And so one day the mother comes to our rectory and with her daughter and they're both sitting in the living room and I asked the mother, well, first of all, thank you for coming. Do you know why you're here? She goes, I have no idea. My daughter just told me I need to come to a meeting here and she wouldn't tell me why. And I look at her and she's got the biggest smirk. So we explained to mom, your daughter is in love with Jesus and she really wants to receive communion. The mom goes, oh boy, I don't know how the pastor's gonna feel about this one. And so we said, you know, there's no pressure, but we just wanted you to be involved and to know if you agree to let her take some class. Would love to do that. In fact, mom, your Baptist, yes, I used to be Catholic. Oh really? Interesting. And so why did you leave? And we asked those questions. I said, how about you come too to the studies? And she goes, oh, I don't know about that father. People talk, you know, eventually pastor's gonna find out and he's gonna have my head. She said, so she agreed. She said, so she agreed. She said, I think there's another mother whose child is going through the same thing. If I can have one other person from the church who lets their child come, I let mine come too. And the Lord made it happen that two of them came. So this little girl is beyond herself yearning to receive this Jesus and this Eucharist that she's heard of so much. Every time she comes, she's able to come to church now, just watching everyone go up and her unable to go up just kills her and it's just begging. When? When, father? Can I receive it tomorrow? When? So we go through our CIA with her. And the day that this poor girl gets baptized, receives the Eucharist in confirmation, she is in heaven. And to this day, it's been a couple years, she is still on cloud nine because of the Eucharist. Praise the Lord. My dear brothers and sisters, her name is Ken Love. What a name, Ken Love. Precious, pretty girl. And for her to show Thanksgiving, she took a video of her plantain garden. Do you know what plantains are? Yeah, plantains, they look like bananas, except they're not. They're green and you can eat them. You have to cook them first. And she's like, father, I can't wait for them to grow. My sister is an agronomist and she's growing them. And so whenever they're done, I'm gonna bring you some plantains and Thanksgiving for what you've done for me. How sweet is that? Poor little thing has nothing, but she wants to give something back. And you see that is the grace of the Eucharist. In the Catechism, number 1324 to 1327, we read this. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, so this conference and everything else are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good or in the French, the whole spiritual treasure of the church, namely Christ himself, our Pask. The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the people of God by which the church is kept in being. It is the culmination, get this, both of God's action, sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Finally, the Eucharistic celebration, we are ready by the Eucharistic celebration, we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life when God will be all in all. In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith. Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking. In other words, the Eucharist is everything. It is the greatest treasure for which you will give up everything else. Saint Paul calls everything done in light of Christ that he has found. This is the Eucharist, this is God that you're about to receive here which is why I laugh when former Catholics will say, oh, you know, I left because I was never fed. You literally eat God at every mass and you were never fed. You were too stupid to realize it. Well, Jesus used that word today, it's not me, he says, you fool! He said to the rich man, so you fool! How could you leave the Eucharist? And how could you not beg your way towards it like Ken Love did? Like our sweet Dr. Daria did, begged for the Eucharist. When I was growing up, I had mass once every year in my church. That's how often Father came by. He had so many responsibilities and so many churches to take care of. We were in the mountains. I love the Eucharist, I'm very grateful now. I wonder if because we have it so often that we take it for granted, I wonder. I wonder, is that why 70% of Catholics say they don't believe in the real presence? What? Well, no wonder everything else is not falling into place because the Eucharist is the summary of our faith. If you don't have the Eucharist, then you don't have faith. You don't have the fullness of faith. You need the Blessed Lord. This is the greatest treasure. But do we really act like that? Dr. Peter Krift tells a story of a Muslim student who asked him, do y'all really believe that this is the real presence of God? He's like, yes, yes indeed, like, I don't think so. Okay, well, obviously you're Muslim. You wouldn't understand, and we understand why you could not bend your knees to the Blessed Sacrament. He says, it's not that. It's just that if I really believe this word, Allah, I don't think I could ever get up from bending my knees. So Catholics, do you really believe that this is God? I said earlier that this is the greatest treasure to be received and to be given. We receive the Eucharist in communion, the holy heavenly banquets where we eat God, hallelujah. We receive God in our hearts. Yes, have you received Jesus as a personal Lord and said, yes, and when are you gonna come to receive him as well in the most intimate way in holy communion? But this is also the greatest treasure to be given, I said. We give this treasure back to God because every single person is called to give back. We feel that necessity wouldn't ever come from. That's how we're made. That is worship. Worship is to receive the gift and to return it unto God. Worship always involves sacrifice, you see. Just because you have a nice band at a nice, beautiful church service somewhere and there's nice lights and et cetera and you think, oh, that's such a good worship. That's nice. That's a little part of worship but this is the heart of worship, the sacrifice of Jesus himself. And this worship connects you both to the pastor and to your heavenly future because the sacrifice of Calvary is made present today. You are able to participate in it, not as spectators but as participant and receivers but also as priests who offer it with the high priest, Jesus and with the ministerial priests. We offer, we receive this gift and offer it back to the Father in sacrifice. This is the sacrifice of the mass and that's the greatest act of worship. We also offer this gift to the whole world and say, come, come, be baptized, repent of your sins and come receive in this banquet. Come to the party, the biggest party ever and you too can be happy, can rejoice. My dear brothers and sisters, let us commit ourselves to make the Eucharist truly the priority of our lives. Let us reorient our lives. We all have blind spots. We all have ways in which we don't really believe the Eucharist is the height, the source, the summit. Can we, for example, start with Sunday Mass? Can we make it not just something to check off? Can we make it the height of our day for the family, for you? Let the world know that you are so happy because you get to go to Mass on this Sunday. Make Sunday the funnest, the greatest day of your family life. Make it so fun for your kids and connect it all to the Eucharist. Let them know that the reason for this day is the Eucharist. The reason for our joy is the Eucharist. Dress beautifully. The Haitians, they are poor. But I said earlier, after the earthquake, when everything was broken, destroyed, houses, walls came down, clothes dirty, ripped, they would wash up whatever they had left, clean up beautifully, iron their clothes and put the best clothes on so that the next day they could come to Mass to thank God for life. Would the world know that the Eucharist is your God by the way that you act? Would the world be able to tell just by seeing you on Sunday, for example, would they be able to tell that this is the source and summit of your lives? It is absolutely the greatest joy. I'm not here to make you feel bad, but I want you to open your eyes and rejoice in the absolute greatest treasure to receive and to give. Amen.