Unfortunately I have to echo a lot of what another reviewer said about Emmaus--the parish just seems to be spiritually asleep.
Emmaus touts over 8000 members--but only offers confession for a total of LESS THAN TWO HOURS PER WEEK (from 4:45 to 5:15 on Wednesdays and 4-4:45 on Saturdays). Every single Wednesday and Saturday there is a long line, and a wait of at least 15 minutes.
Two Saturdays ago I showed up at 410 and there was already 7 people ahead of me, including a few young boys and girls and two families with toddlers. I waited 40 minutes and as soon as it was my turn, Father had to go to mass and turned myself and the 8 other people behind me away. He said he would continue confession after 530 mass but as I'm sure you're aware, that defeats the PURPOSE of confession, which is to attend mass in a state of grace. As a practical matter, if this is the type of demand that we're seeing in the normal course, I can imagine that even more people will be waiting once the Lenten season begins. And from a spiritual perspective, I would think that the Church would want to encourage families and young people to come to confession, not (1) decline to give the sacrament due to time constraints and/or (2) dissuade them from seeking the sacrament because they run the risk of not receiving it if they arrive more than 5 minutes after the scheduled start time.
It is obvious that the laity wants to receive confession but the parish doesn't seem to want to accommodate. I reached out to the church about this and they told me that you can always request a private confession, which clearly doesn't address the issue. They also CC'ed both priests in the parish, but neither responded. It's now the Lenten season and nothing has changed. Very disappointing.
More generally, the Masses seem uninspired. At a typical Sunday Mass, there are no altar servers, they use guitar and piano despite having a beautiful organ for music, all of the songs are from the 1970s (cringe), one song was adopted from the SHAKERS (double cringe, if not heresy???), the priest didn't even enter carrying a crucifix, and the Eucharist was administered by laity wearing jeans.
Meanwhile you have a lot of people in attendance, and many are wearing traditional Catholic veils. It's clear that the laity desires a more traditional, actually Roman Catholic experience than what Emmaus is offering. Lakeway is a huge place with plenty of Christian churches that one can attend if they want to listen to 1970s guitar music. But as the only Catholic Church in the area, this is just sad. read more