 When I got COVID, I realized I had COVID. I was making coffee one morning, and you know, one of the great things about coffee is in the morning, you can smell it. And it's, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not alone, right? So I'm making coffee. I was, I was literally in my cell at the friary and didn't leave my room for like 10 days. So they got me a little coffee pot that I could put in my little bathroom so that each morning at least I didn't have to ask the friars, bring me coffee, bring me more coffee, right? But one morning I'm making it and I realized I can't smell anything. And then I taste it and I realized there's no taste for it. Such is having COVID. I was listening to a comedian and he was Italian. And he was talking about COVID and he said, the reality is that you never had to talk or manipulate or try to make sure that Italians got the vaccination for COVID. The moment they heard that the loss of taste was the side effect of COVID, they said, every Italian is lining up to get that. He goes, I got Pfizer, I got Johnson and Johnson. I got, he goes, I got every booster, everything was fine. As soon as I learned that I might lose my sense of taste, give it to me, I'll take it. I'm not willing to risk that, right? Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. And I was thinking about that and could we have a more appropriate scripture for us and focusing on the Eucharist for the next couple of days? Literally, taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Dr. Alan Stracke, who taught here for a number of years, just retired at the university. One of the things he was constantly drilling in the students and wherever is that one of the beautiful things about being Catholic is that we're so incarnational is that we believe God can use stuff to reveal himself. And that is first and foremost in the incarnation that God takes the stuff of man and reveals himself. But he takes the stuff of bread that we literally get to take and we get to eat and we get to taste. I love it. It's not just taste, but it's taste and see that we are invited, as we heard earlier today, to really to be able to take in and to ingest and to taste the living God, right? That we get to taste all of the all the adjectives that we would use or all the descriptions of the Lord. We get to taste the bread of life, right? That we get to ingest the bread of life and we put it in our mouth and we chew and we eat and we swallow. We taste the bread of life. I mean, if I want to have life in me, which I do, and Lord, I just desire to be filled with your very presence, then take and eat, literally take and eat and taste what the Lord has done for you. To be able to taste that which is holy, that which is anointed, that which is life giving, to taste the invitation the Lord has given to us. For Francis, he couldn't imagine a God who would humble himself and take on flesh, and then he would go one step further. He couldn't imagine that same God that would allow us to literally to take and to eat. A God who can be tasted, he can be eaten, he can be swallowed, but he understood, right? He understood the promise that was made that if you eat my body and drink my blood, you will have life in you. If the sweetness of the blood that we place on our lips taste, as the Deacon was saying, the blood was life, the life blood, right? And we get to taste and consume and ingest. Allow that to help us to see. Lord, I want to see your goodness. Somebody shared with me earlier today who's here and they said everywhere they look, it's just crap. It's one dumpster fire after another. So Lord, I want to taste and I want to see your goodness. I want to see your goodness. The brothers that were walking to Emmaus, and they recognize and they're literally blind and the bread is broken. And finally, they can see Lord, I want to taste and I want to see your goodness. I want to claim the reality that when I receive your body and blood that it changes me and it allows me to see it. It clears up the blindness that I see in just you that so often times I can't even see you. It's I get consumed with my work and with my busyness and with my ministry. It seems unbelievable that I would not be able to see you, but so often times we don't see you. I want to be able to see you in places that I can't imagine you be. That parishioner that drives me crazy, right? Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. I want to see you in myself, but so often times feel like that I don't quite measure up or I'm not doing a good enough job or I'm not holy enough or I'm not praying up. Taste and see the goodness of God who dwells in you, brother. The part of you that looks in the mirror and at times you just discuss it just not again, right? Taste and see. Allow the Lord to clear the blindness that you're able to see the goodness of God who dwells in you, who's redeemed you, who's transformed you, who's changed you, who's literally breathing life because you taste and see the goodness of the Lord. But I want to be able to see your glory and your majesty and your anointing and your holiness. I want to claim that word that there is goodness, taste, and see the goodness of the Lord. This is what the Eucharist is, brothers. We're invited to that, right? We're invited and as Deacon said, we receive the Eucharist and we're sent out to see the goodness out there, to be the goodness out there. But it doesn't start, it doesn't happen unless we first come here and we take and we eat and we taste so that we might see. Jesus, allow us to taste, heal our blindness so that we can see your goodness. Amen.