May 8, 2011
Third Sunday of Easter year A
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ
You who are Israelites, hear these words. Jesus the Nazorean was a man commended to you by God with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs, which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, using lawless men to crucify him. But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it. Acts 2:22-24
Now if you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each one's works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb. 1 Peter 1:17-19
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Luke 24:25-26
Piety
The Lord shows us the path of life in Christ. Our heart is able to recognize what the mind does not understand. The heart has reasons the mind will never comprehend. We have to pay attention to our hearts burning within us when Christ is speaking to our hearts through the scriptures. Friends reveal Christ through their love for us. We must invite Christ to stay with us. We share meals with special friends. We pray before meals that our food be blessed but we should also be praying that we see the Christ in each other. Christ is never forcing himself on us. Love is a free gift that cannot be forced. We are always free to accept each other’s love. We are just as free to love in the name of Christ. No one has to deserve our love. Love is a gift that is given without the mind always being able to understand what is going on.
Study
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus walked with Christ without realizing with whom they traveled. They invited Christ to stay with them when he would have walked on. How we invite Christ into relationships with us has its strongest invitation in the invitation to share a meal together. How we break bread with one another reveals Christ more than any other thing we could do. When we share Eucharist together we have Christ present to us in the Eucharist we share. Even as Christ becomes one with us, we are one with each other in the sharing of the Body of Christ. In our prayer we can ask Christ to share with us how he sees the Old Testament stories relating to himself. Christ is the fullness of all the prophets had to say. His giving of his life for us gives us the ultimate reason for sharing all of ourselves with our community. Community is not us having things in common. Community is the oneness that comes from our sharing Christ.
Action
We are a Eucharistic people. The Christ of the Resurrection invites us to share his gift of himself by the reception of Eucharist. We can be Eucharist to one another by sharing our hearts by actions that take care of the needy of the Community. The Lord shows us the path to life. Christ is the unblemished lamb that redeems us. We are ransomed from futile conduct by Christ. He calls us to be his presence to those we serve. The Christ of the Resurrection is a stranger to the disciples until they break bread together. We need to make ourselves into the Eucharist that makes us his presence to those we serve. Thus we become the Eucharistic people.
