Pastor's Letter 20240414 - 14 April 2024 - Third Sunday of Easter

Father Michael · April 13

April 14^th, 2024

Third Sunday of Easter

“Two disciples were walking toward Emmaus...”

Message from Father ^†Michael

Today’s Theme:

“Opening Our Minds”

Reflections on Today’s Scripture

“Jubilate Deo, omnis terra.” (Rejoice unto God, all the earth.) The Church sings Her happiness in the joy of the Resurrection, and proclaims the glory of the Lord. The simple, yet sublime program of a life true to itself, is mapped out by ^†Luke, as we hear in our First Reading, from Acts. The Christian, making for his heavenly home, pursues his path on earth, continuing to observe all the obligations of human existence, knowing this is pleasing to God. The trials themselves have their part to play: they form our initiation into eternal life. Fully directed towards the final triumph, the Christian’s life is a struggle, in which the victory already won in the person of our Savior, must be progressively experienced.

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(Acts 3:13-21) ^†Luke gives an early explanation of the Passion and an example of the early witness to the Resurrection. Standing at the center of human history, Jesus, The Incarnate Word, as summed up in His person, articulates every best hope of humanity. Ignorance of the Lord can be offered as an excuse only once; after that, those who reject Jesus become responsible for their actions.

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(John 2:1-5) ^†John teaches that we know God by keeping His commandments. But, when we fail, Christ intercedes for us with the Father. Because of Jesus’ saving mission and His victory over sin and death, believers are gifted with a knowledge of the God, Whose power to forgive has healed every believing heart. The knowledge of God spills forth in good deeds; similarly, good deeds lead us to deeper knowledge.

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(Luke 24:35-48) ^†Luke’s Gospel relates how Jesus appeared to the apostles and commissioned them to preach the Gospel to all nations. All that went before Jesus anticipated His coming; all that happened after His appearance witnesses to His victory over sin and death.

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Rebirth of a Dream

Many people pursue illusions, like the apostles did, pursuing the illusion of a “glorious Messiah,” Who could not suffer. When Jesus was crucified, that illusion was exposed and their world “fell apart.” They reacted by cutting themselves off, behind closed doors.

It was only when Jesus appeared to them, and opened their minds to a new truth, that their collapsed dream was reborn—the truth that it was precisely through His suffering and death that He had come into glory. It took some time for this to “sink in,” but when it did, they knew that even death had not succeeded in breaking the bond that had been forged between Him and them over those three years.

The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our Christian faith. The empty tomb, in itself is not a direct “proof” of the Resurrection. Nevertheless, it was a first step towards establishing the truth that Jesus had escaped the bonds of death, and prepared the disciples to encounter the Risen Lord.

The initial shock caused by His death was such that the disciples were slow to believe in the news of the Resurrection. Even when faced with the reality of Jesus, they still doubted, thinking they were seeing a “ghost.” The apostles’ faith in the Resurrection was born from their direct experience of the Risen Lord. Therefore, the theory that the Resurrection was produced merely by their faith (or hope) does not hold up.

It is critical for Christians to openly affirm the bodily Resurrection of Jesus. This is different from the beliefs (shared by other faiths,) that the human spirit is in some way “naturally” eternal, and continues after death of the body. For them, the body dies and the soul is released into new life. Nowhere does the Bible teach this!

The Christian belief is that the body will share in the triumph of Jesus’ Resurrection. The Resurrection stories all stress that Jesus rose with His body; the tomb is empty; the apostles touched Him; He ate meals with them and walked with them.

The bodily Resurrection of Jesus is the most profound basis for the Christian attitude towards the human body. We care for the bodies of the hungry and the sick, because we know they are destined to share in the Resurrection of Jesus. It means that Jesus lives, and we also can encounter Him, in faith.
Our Blessed Lord does not insulate us from reality. Rather, He is with us, helping to give meaning and beauty to our lives, especially to the painful and dark parts. And, like the apostles, we also are commissioned to bring the Good News to others. (We especially meet Him during every Holy Mass—in the Scripture Readings—the Liturgy of the Word; and during Holy Communion—in the “Breaking of the Bread.”)

He was not a “resurrected corpse,” but had a body—not subject to human boundaries of time and space. His was a body marked with signs of His previous life—the wounds—but also one that was different than flesh and bones that were nailed to a cross. It was a body no longer subject to ordinary laws of nature. He is not as He was; but He is Who He was.

All the stories emphasize that He is the “same person,” yet somehow changed, and therefore, was not immediately recognizable. This is an effective way of making the point that Resurrection is not a return to earthly life, as before. Jesus has shown that the just will have risen to a new life, beyond death—a life with God, the Father, in heaven.

This is the message of true Christian humanism: We are invited not to become someone else, but to become more authentically what we already are….

May God Richly Bless You!

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