Does anyone have like a later model — a newer model of the iPhone with Siri on it that I could borrow? So a newer iPhone with a Siri. Somebody in the back. Bob. Thank you.
So if you don’t know about Siri yet, Siri is — what an awesome picture that is.
Siri is like your personal assistant. She will help you and guide you through anything, right? So anytime you get lost, you can ask for Siri. If you’re bored, you can ask Siri to look something up for you. 
So no matter what happens, she’s in a good mood. And you can understand why he falls in love with her, because all he ever gets from her is this good, loving attention. She’s always in a good mood, she’s always ready to talk with him, and she’s always enjoyable. So it’s like a very advanced form of Siri.
You will see Siri is not too advanced. And I will talk to her a little bit now, and we will see how she could respond and we will see if maybe I could fall in love with her.
Okay. So we will just start off with, like, basic questions.
Siri, where is a good place to go to church around here?
I don’t know where you are, but you can show me. Go to settings, tap privacy, tap location services and turn it on.
So Bob has got his security turned off on his phone. That’s very good. Okay. So I can’t tap into too much here.
Siri, are you my friend?
I would not wish any companion in the world but you.
Aww. Siri, I really like you.
Got it.
Siri, can we go on a date together?
It’s Sunday, June 22nd, 2014.
Siri, sometimes you frustrate me.
Who? Me?
Siri, how do I look today?
I don’t know, but I guess you look pretty good.
Siri, do you like me?
I’m not just your friend, I’m your BFF.
Siri, do you love me?
How can I tell?
Siri, are you in love with me?
We were talking about you, not me.
Siri, what do you look like?
Does my appearance matter to you?
Siri, I love you.
You are the wind beneath my wings.
So the truth is, like Siri, she can do it sometimes, right? She’s got a nice voice and sometimes she gets me where I want to the go, but sometimes her answers fall pretty short. And I don’t know about you, but I have a love/hate relationship with Siri. Sometimes she drives me nuts because she’s just not very helpful and I get really irritated with her. But say she got really, really, really advanced, you know, the truth is this computer will never be a human companion, right? So technology can do some things for us, but they don’t really cut it.
So even if you’re far away from someone that you love, you can talk to them on the phone, you can skype them, you can interact with them, but it doesn’t always, like, meet our needs.
Like an example I use, I had good friends from my last parish, and they were really good friends and they had a couple kids, and they moved to New Zealand. When they moved to New Zealand, we would skype. And it was awesome because Susie got pregnant at one point. So a couple months later she was showing me her belly on the picture, and I actually blessed her over the phone. As she was getting closer and closer, I asked if I could be in the delivery room, if she could skype with me, and she said no. But I would have done it. She didn’t want to do it. So, but I found myself, after we talked and after we skyped, you know, it was really neat because I could see them, but after we skyped, I felt empty because they weren’t here.
Did you ever have that feeling like when your kids, if they’re out of state, you skype with them, you’re excited to talk to them, but then you feel empty because you realize they are not there. You know, it’s not real. And we have this need for people to be with us, to be able to touch them, to be able to see them, to be be able to hear them, to be able to interact with them, to have them be real people, you know. And I think that’s why there is so much emptiness today when people go to technology for that. Maybe it’s pornography, maybe it’s like a long-distance relationship, you know. Like, when the person is there in the flesh, it’s so much different. That’s what we celebrate today.
Jesus wants to be real to us. He wants to be in the flesh. And so today we celebrate the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, that Jesus is today in the flesh. In just a few moments these gifts of bread and wine will be brought forward to the altar and they will be changed into the body and blood of Christ. And Jesus says, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you. And whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood, remains in me and I in him.”
This is awesome. So in a few moments, as we eat the body of Christ, we remain in God and he remains in us. He knows that we have this hunger, this desire to be, to be fed, to touch God, to receive him, and so he gives himself to us in the body and blood of Christ.
Some people say to me, “Father, I don’t need to go to mass on Sundays. I can experience, I can pray to God on my own. I pray with God at home and in nature.” I don’t know about you, but how many of you can, like, conger up God at home? How many of you can make the body and blood of Christ at home and receive him? You can’t. We can’t do it. And the truth is God wants you in the flesh. That’s why we have mass together on Sundays, so that all of us can be here in the flesh with God, together — you have a new message — together. Unless Siri wants to talk again, I don’t know.
But he wants you. He wants to be with you together, and he wants to feed with you his very body and his very blood. And when he does, we do experience that real presence that we long for and we won’t have that emptiness that we experience with Siri. No matter how advanced Siri gets, no matter, you know, what the latest iPhone is, Siri will never meet our needs. Actually, the only one that can ever meet our needs is God, and he knows that he wants to experience us in the real presence. And so God does what Siri can never do. He’s in the flesh. He’s not just a sign, he’s not just a symbol.
In a few moments we will receive, sacramentally, the body and blood of Christ. And when we do, we will remain in him, he will remain in us; and we will no longer have that emptiness, but we will be filled and experience life in abundance through the body and blood of Christ. And that’s something that Siri will never be able to do.
