First Reading – Acts 2:14, 22-33 ©
Responsorial Psalm - Psalm
15(16):1-2, 5, 7-11 ©
Second Reading – 1 Peter 1:17-21 ©
Gospel Acclamation – Luke 24:32
The
Gospel According to Luke 24:13 - 35 ©
(NJB)
Listen!
It is a disservice to the memory of Jesus and a
misrepresentation of the way he would have us live by, to make him a
figure of mythic power and present him as some kind of demi-god.
Be mindful.
Jesus was a man, as Peter says; he was a Nazarene.
His preaching is to be understood as a sign of God’s
goodness, Jesus spoke the truth and lived a humble life, he called us to the
path of justice, and demonstrated what justice was through his constant
humility, compassion and kindness, by his constant inclination to mercy.
His life itself was a miracle; he performed no feats
of magic.
Remember this:
Jesus’ death was a political murder. He was
crucified by the Romans on behalf of the Herodians and the Sanhedrin. Upon the
death of his body he entered into eternal life, as all of God’s children do. He
was a human being, perhaps not like any other, but a human being nonetheless.
We honor his life and death by acknowledging this.
Consider the worlds of the psalmist.
Trust in God, faith and confidence are their own reward.
God is good, and all that is good flows from God, as
everything flows from God.
Look for the good of God in all creation, in
everything that unfolds for you.
There are no alien gods, there are no foreign gods,
as the psalmist refers to them, there are only misconceptions of the one God, each
and every one of us fosters a misconception and each of us is responsible for
our own.
All of our cherished but errant images of God are merely
idols, whether they are made of metal, or of stone, of wood or of words,
whether they are painted on canvass, or merely colored in the mind, they are
idols.
Know this.
God calls all of Gods children to God’s self, no one
is left out of God’s plan, the divine calls to us from the center of our hearts,
wearing the mask we have held up to personify the divine.
Listen!
The apostle is right when he tells us to be
scrupulous, to be careful; we are to take care, not only we are away from home,
we are to exercise care and seek wisdom in all things.
The apostle is wrong when he says: by the blood of
Jesus a ransom was paid for us. There was no ransom, God forgave us all of our
sins, God forgave us freely, God did so from the vantage of Eternity, when
everything that we are and all that we have done was only a possibility.
God forgave us in freedom; in grace we have received
it.
Be mindful!
If the example that Jesus set was ever alive in you,
you must know that it is just as corruptible as anything else in this world. It
is easier to turn your baptism toward an evil purpose than it is to turn an
evil act toward the good.
Have faith, God has promised to do so.
Just because you have been baptized does not mean
that you are incorruptible, God will not prevent you from sinning, from sinning
more and to greater degrees than you ever have before…but God will forgive you
in the end, having endured your sins with you, together with those who have suffered
on account of them.
Know this.
Ransom was not paid to free anyone from sin, or from
any way of life.
Jesus was not a sacrificial lamb, the cross on Calvary
is not an analog of the sacred altar in the Holy of Holies. God does not desire
blood sacrifice or burnt offerings, or the smell of animal fat rising to the
heavens, these are human machinations. Such hokus pokus is wholly ineffectual, even
as symbols they are worthless, the product of magical thinking, of immature
minds, and backwards culture.
Jesus of Nazareth, though he was the Christ; he was
a human, perhaps not like any other, but a human being nonetheless.
Consider the Gospel for today.
From
the earliest days of the Church the apostles and the Gospel writers became
confused with questions about who Jesus was, about his rank among the prophets,
about his historical connection to Moses, and with finding proofs for the
authority of his ministry in the sacred text.
In
their confusion they began to make up stories to validate their claims; it was unnecessary,
and the lies they told brought the nascent Church down terrible paths to
disastrous ends, completely contrary to the way Jesus taught.
Be
mindful.
Jesus
did not perform miracles to prove to anyone that he was a child of God, such
things never happened. What Jesus did was stress the fact that we are all the
children of God, even the leper and the thief, the unmarried woman and the
outcast; it is this teaching that is miraculous.
The
true miracle was convincing his followers that the way was true, bringing
dignity to the lives of the unfortunate, the outcast and the shunned.
Jesus
did not come to work magic, he did not come to flash signs and show wonders, that
is not how God works in the world.
The
core of today’s Gospel is not the long story about encountering Jesus, or listening
to him expound the scriptures, offering proofs and arguments to prove to the
disciples who he was.
The
signal truth is this, “They recognized him in the breaking of the bread.”
Listen!
The
disciples had the opportunity to see Jesus in the man they encountered on the
road, but they did not see him in the stranger.
They
had the opportunity to see him in the faith of the woman at the tomb, but they
could not understand it and they refused to recognize her.
Jesus
was dead and yet the way which he personified remained, those would have
have the faith to follow it would continue as living witness of God’s intentions
for creation.
In
today’s Gospel the disciples were finally able to see the way only when
they broke bread with the stranger they encountered on the road. They found the
way in community, they found it once they humbled themselves.
The
way
is love.
First Reading – Acts 2:14, 22-33 ©
God Raised this Man Jesus to Life,
and All of Us Are Witnesses to This
On the day of Pentecost Peter stood up with the
Eleven and addressed the crowd in a loud voice: ‘Men of Israel, listen to what
I am going to say: Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God by the
miracles and portents and signs that God worked through him when he was among
you, as you all know. This man, who was put into your power by the deliberate
intention and foreknowledge of God, you took and had crucified by men outside
the Law. You killed him, but God raised him to life, freeing him from the pangs
of Hades; for it was impossible for him to be held in its power since, as David
says of him:
I saw the Lord before me always, for with him at my
right hand nothing can shake me.
So my heart was glad and my tongue cried out with
joy; my body, too, will rest in the hope that you will not abandon my soul to
Hades nor allow your holy one to experience corruption.
You have made known the way of life to me, you will
fill me with gladness through your presence.
‘Brothers, no one can deny that the patriarch David
himself is dead and buried: his tomb is still with us. But since he was a prophet,
and knew that God had sworn him an oath to make one of his descendants succeed
him on the throne, what he foresaw and spoke about was the resurrection of the
Christ: he is the one who was not abandoned to Hades, and whose body did not
experience corruption. God raised this man Jesus to life, and all of us are
witnesses to that. Now raised to the heights by God’s right hand, he has
received from the Father the Holy Spirit, who was promised, and what you see
and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit.’
Responsorial
Psalm - Psalm 15(16):1-2, 5, 7-11 ©
Show us, Lord, the path of life.
Alleluia!
Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.
I say to the
Lord: ‘You are my God.
O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup;
it is you
yourself who are my prize.’
Show us, Lord, the path of life.
I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,
who even at
night directs my heart.
I keep the Lord ever in my sight:
since he is
at my right hand, I shall stand firm.
Show us, Lord, the path of life.
And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad;
even my body
shall rest in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead,
nor let your
beloved know decay.
Show us, Lord, the path of life.
You will show me the path of life,
the fullness
of joy in your presence,
at your
right hand happiness for ever.
Show us, Lord, the path of life.
Alleluia!
Second Reading – 1 Peter 1:17-21 ©
Your Ransom was Paid in the Precious Blood
of Christ
If you are acknowledging as your Father one who has
no favourites and judges everyone according to what he has done, you must be
scrupulously careful as long as you are living away from your home. Remember,
the ransom that was paid to free you from the useless way of life your
ancestors handed down was not paid in anything corruptible, neither in silver
nor gold, but in the precious blood of a lamb without spot or stain, namely
Christ; who, though known since before the world was made, has been revealed
only in our time, the end of the ages, for your sake. Through him you now have
faith in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory for that very
reason – so that you would have faith and hope in God.
Gospel
Acclamation – Luke 24:32
Alleluia, alleluia!
Lord Jesus, explain the Scriptures to us.
Make our hearts burn within us as you talk to us.
Alleluia!
The Gospel According to Luke 24:13 -
35 ©
They Recognized Him at the Breaking
of Bread
Two
of the disciples of Jesus were on their way to a village called Emmaus, seven
miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking together about all that had happened.
Now as they talked this over, Jesus himself came up and walked by their side;
but something prevented them from recognising him. He said to them, ‘What
matters are you discussing as you walk along?’ They stopped short, their faces
downcast.
Then
one of them, called Cleopas, answered him, ‘You must be the only person staying
in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have been happening there these
last few days.’ ‘What things?’ he asked. ‘All about Jesus of Nazareth’ they
answered ‘who proved he was a great prophet by the things he said and did in
the sight of God and of the whole people; and how our chief priests and our
leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and had him crucified. Our
own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free. And this is not
all: two whole days have gone by since it all happened; and some women from our
group have astounded us: they went to the tomb in the early morning, and when
they did not find the body, they came back to tell us they had seen a vision of
angels who declared he was alive. Some of our friends went to the tomb and
found everything exactly as the women had reported, but of him they saw
nothing.’
Then
he said to them, ‘You foolish men! So slow to believe the full message of the prophets!
Was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory?’
Then, starting with Moses and going through all the prophets, he explained to
them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about himself.
When
they drew near to the village to which they were going, he made as if to go on;
but they pressed him to stay with them. ‘It is nearly evening’ they said ‘and
the day is almost over.’ So he went in to stay with them. Now while he was with
them at table, he took the bread and said the blessing; then he broke it and
handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognised him; but he
had vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, ‘Did not our
hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the
scriptures to us?’
They
set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven
assembled together with their companions, who said to them, ‘Yes, it is true.
The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.’ Then they told their story of
what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking
of bread.
The
Third Sunday of Easter (Year A)
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