By Fr. Jerry Hardy

Recently, one of my closest friends celebrated an anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. Each year when this happens he jots down his thoughts and reflections and shares them. He did the same this year and because he and his reflections mean a lot to me, I thought it might be good to include them here. The “he” is Fr. Bob Kinast, and here are his ideas. They speak for themselves.

LIFE ON THE WAY TO EMMAUS…

Reflections on a priesthood four years old

Fr. Bob Kinast

It’s not that Emmaus is so great;

It’s just that Jerusalem keeps turning

Into dead ends,

Blocking its daring promise

Between sheer fear and practiced mediocrity.

And you are an interpreter of this holy city,

Wizened by four years of words

And expected to give meaning

To its tangle of ways and wills

But your glossary of solutions is wearing thin,

Your repeated explanations monotonous, even to you.

Sometimes it is best to get out of town.

But walk, don’t ride

And look back a lot

And listen to strangers

And consider your city’s anxious confusion

From the outskirts of the village.

Then maybe you’ll understand

Where the dead ends can lead.

When optimism, spawned by our own resources,

Has no where left to go,

Then HOPE, rooted in God’s fidelity, may emerge;

When projects, bent on reshaping life,

Wither from exhaustion,

Then CONCERN, mystical as the Lord’s, may posses;

When certitude, contained in causes of our knowing,

Cannot solve all the questions,

Then TRANSCENDENCE of the answer game is possible;

When community, relying on the proximity of people,

Vanishes in their absence,

Then PRESENCE of a purer wholeness may be discerned;

When styles, competing for the avant-garde award,

Start smothering,

Then SIMPLICITY, struck clean by innocence, may return.

Return, As you must,

From the village where you’ve barely arrived,

For the trip has filled your heart with words

Meant for making sense of the baffling city.

Many roads lead out of Jerusalem,

But the way to Emmaus

Always leads back,

Only more quickly

For the thrill of news to share.