The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
I felt strange walking through an airport terminal without a suitcase or a flight to catch.
It was Ash Wednesday, and my assignment was to cover the distribution of ashes at Houston’s busiest airport. Flashing a special pass, a deacon escorted me past security to the airport’s chapel where he joined Father Charles in offering pastoral care, like Mass, reconciliation and prayer services for travelers and airport staff.
Father Charles’s voice rose above the din of rolling suitcases, boarding calls and noise.
“It takes just 15 seconds to get ashes,” he’d say. “Confession takes a little bit longer.”
Flight attendants, pilots, passengers and restaurant workers stood in Father’s line for ashes. When a pilot needed her confession heard, deacon took the lead while they headed to the chapel for privacy and penance. Faith at flight, it seemed. Outside the chapel, I heard an attendant say he hadn’t been able to receive ashes on Ash Wednesday for the last five years.
In the lulls when few wanted ashes or prayer, I interviewed Father Charles. Halfway through, he stopped me to ask how I was doing and if I needed my confession heard. I hesitated and paused my recorder, glancing at the chapel’s stained-glass window like it would tell me yes or no.
As a journalist, I try to remove myself from the stories I cover. I avoid the front of a church during Mass, I wait for the end of an event for comments and I didn’t want to interrupt an Ash Wednesday service to seek God’s mercy.
Father smiled at me. Still, I lurched. I know Jesus brings peace; three people reminded me earlier in interviews, like the rejoicing disciples surprised by Jesus, saying “We have seen the Lord.”
But even though I wanted to say “Yes, Father, I need confession,” I had become Thomas, doubting my hope and value against the weight of my sins.
Jesus Christ entered the locked room of my heart that day. Acting through the priest’s ministry, my Lord and my God stood before me to show me His wounds and say to me – and to you – “Peace be with you.”
Today, as peace and forgiveness finds us on Divine Mercy Sunday, Jesus says to us: “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”