April 19^th 2015.  Third Sunday of Easter

Gospel: Luke 24:35-48

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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Gospel: Luke 24:35-48

The disciples told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised Jesus at the breaking of bread.

They were still talking about this when Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’ In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, ‘Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.’ And as he said this he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they could not believe it, and they stood dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?‘ And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes.

Then he told them, ‘This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms, has to be fulfilled.’ He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The Gospel recounts the surprise of the disciples when the Risen Lord appears among them. The resurrection is always a surprising event in our lives! The Lord redeems us and touches us in ways that we do not expect. This is how it has always been in the history of salvation. Abraham climbed a mountain thinking he would have to sacrifice his son, but in the end it was God himself who offered his own son. Moses arrived at the Red Sea with his enemies closing in on him, thinking he was at a dead end, but God opened the most unexpected path in front of him. All of us experience difficulties and problems, dead ends and unresolved conflicts. It is in these very places that the Risen Lord is active in our lives! Let us open ourselves to the unexpected action of God in the desperation and despair of our lives, just as the Father raised the Son amid the despair of the crucifixion. The last lines of the Gospel speak of the repentance and forgiveness of sin that comes about as a result of the resurrection. This is the most powerful manifestation of the Risen Lord among us. At every moment of every day he offers us the generous pardon of the Father, leading us to repentance and transformation.

We are redeemed in ways that we do not expect. Therefore we must always be open to the surprising initiatives of the Lord towards us on a daily basis.

The Gospel recounts the surprise of the disciples when they encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus. It is in the breaking of the bread that they finally recognize him. The first reading also highlights our need to be open to the novelties that the Lord continually places before us. Peter tells the Jews that they have betrayed and handed over the very one that God has glorified. They have taken the Just Holy One and killed the Author of Life. Here Peter highlights the absurd and paradoxical nature of Christian belief. Salvation, the Easter event, is not a logical consequence of our schemes for understanding the world. Our concepts can aid us in approaching God to some extent, but, on the other hand, they are also in need of being overturned and abandoned. God’s ways of behaving are not our ways. Peter acknowledges this when he declares to his listeners that they acted out of ignorance when they killed Jesus. This ignorance within all of us must be acknowledged. When God saves us, it is always in a manner that we do not expect. The history of salvation is the history of the unexpected. Abraham climbs the mountain to sacrifice his son, but discovers that he is called to so something completely different. God no longer demands Abraham’s son, but, when the proper time arrives, offers his own. Moses arrives at a dead end, confronted by the sea, with his enemies closing on him from behind, but God comes up with the unexpected solution. Easter, similarly, is something that is outside of our expectations. It is not an event that is predictable or planned. We sometimes think that our lives can be codified and regularized perfectly. We work out detailed programmes for the education of youth. But it is God’s work in the end that is important, the way that he responds to our poor initiatives.

We do not encounter the Risen Lord on a purely intellectual level. Our experience of Him in our daily lives is something much more personal and real

In the Gospel from Luke, the Christian community are confronted with the unexpected. Jesus appears in the midst of them and says “Peace be with you!” The disciples are afraid and think they are seeing a ghost. They do not comprehend that Jesus is something real and physically approachable. Jesus asks them why they have doubts in their hearts and encourages them to touch his wounds, saying that a ghost does not have flesh and blood as he has. The resurrection involves a physical experience of Jesus, not just some kind of inner experience. The disciples encounter him with all of their senses, touching him, hearing his word, eating with him, seeing him with their eyes. The resurrection is not simply an event that involves rational comprehension. In fact, intellectual understanding is humiliated by the resurrection and consigned to second place. In order for our minds to be opened, the Lord shows us that the categories of our mind are inadequate. This is a work of the Lord, his initiative in our lives.

We must learn to abandon ourselves to the Lord, accepting his surprising action in our daily existence

We are called to abandon ourselves to the working out of the plan of the Lord within us, to be open to his surprising way of dealing with us. As the disciples did in the Gospel, we must place ourselves at the heart of a Christian community, in a position of dialogue with other believers, allowing Jesus to appear among us and work on us. Through suffering, death and failure, God unexpectedly brings about salvation and transformation. We, instead, would prefer to go step by step, from one safe haven to the next, but the Lord goes from abandonment to abandonment. We like to move from certainties to certainties, but the Lord proceeds from one surprise to another. In our lives there are many doubts and difficulties. What should we do with these things? Open ourselves to the Lord, realizing that he uses these very things to appear as the Risen One in our lives. Easter is not simply an event of 2000 years ago, nor is it simply some intellectual news that concerns the person of Jesus. It is something that is relevant to our existence today, especially those things that we consider wrong or disordered. It is right here that the Easter of the Lord manifests itself.

The continual surprise of Easter involves being open to the generous and surprising pardon of God that is offered to us at every turn in our daily lives, a pardon that facilitates our conversion and transformation

The Christian life is not something that tends towards a static state of self-sufficiency. It is something that causes our minds to be continually opened, a state of surprise that is never exhausted, a repeated act of acceptance on the part of God of each of us, his pardon of our weakness and poverty. As Jesus says when he appears: “ . . in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem”. Repentance entails overcoming our previous state of sinfulness; the forgiveness of sins entails the acceptance of our uncleanliness and poverty by the generous love of the Father. Living this life of repentance and the forgiveness of sins is not possible if we try to confine our Christian existence neatly within a rational box. The forgiveness of sins is illogical. The acceptance of the injustice of another doesn’t make sense from our limited perspective. Easter involves a total change of perception. It is a constant state of openness to the transforming and redeeming power of God in our lives.