Homily from the Parish Priest for the Third Sunday of Easter
Readings for Year B: Acts 3:13-19; I John 2:1-5; Luke 24:35-48
When was the last time someone had to ask you whether you really believed in something or someone? How did you feel to be pestered about it? And can you explain why they asked you?
Well, we have an incredibly rich Gospel story today involving Our Lord and his first disciples after the resurrection.
They have seen the Lord on the road to Emmaus where they recognize him at the breaking of bread – that is they recognize it is really him because his body has been broken on the cross – the breaking of bread is a prefigurement of the gift of the Eucharist in the Church. And yet oddly now they do not recognize him at all – they think they are seeing a ghost. And in making this mistake they fail to recognize that the Jesus who has been through the suffering of the cross is indeed different – the Jesus whose body has been broken for them is no longer as He was before – he has conquered death, done away with slavery to sin, opened the gates of eternal life to them. They should have known this from their knowledge of the prophets and the Old Testament scriptures but their hearts and their minds were closed to it, to him. What they see now is his glorified body, the wounds still open which as they gaze upon them they recognize he is real, he is fully human, physical like you and I, yet has now won the victory over everything that keeps us as humans from being like God, from attaining eternal life. And so they are – through their encounter with the person of Jesus Christ risen and glorified – brought from doubt to faith in the life He now offers us.
It’s worth reflecting on that call to new life – a call we receive in our baptism and confirmation and in which we are strengthened in the eucharist.
In a nutshell to know that death here and now has no power over us. As we "see and believe" we acknowledge the power of God in our world – just ponder that a moment – that God as creator and sustainer of the world has power over all those things which would seem to bring us down, to lead us into our own tomb, the power of evil rather than good.
And there’s plenty of that around in our world – indeed we might say it’s evidence against our faith in the power of Christ’s resurrection over death. The evil of injustice, corruption, hatred and violence. The battle between good and evil. But our Faith in the God Who has loved us so much He died and rose for us requires us to live our lives from the perspective that the victory over all that is evil is assured through Him.
In order to strengthen our faith in these mysteries we are given the sacraments of the Church instituted by Christ himself and in particular the Eucharist. It’s the gift of the Eucharist that the disciples on the Road to Emmaus are confronted with as they encounter the risen Lord, broken for us, now glorified. And the gift of the Eucharist is a special place where we encounter Jesus each week, indeed every day. To help us to witness to the love of the Lord Who died out of total love for us and is now risen. The gift of the Eucharist. We are reminded in this Gospel story of the feeding of the five thousand through the showing to the apostles the bread which the Lord breaks and the fish, so we are reminded of the generous gift of the Lord’s broken body in the Eucharist. Reminding us of our own brokenness yet of the hope that comes with our faith in the risen Lord. But not just a reminder, not just a memory: the Lord is indeed risen and each day each week is in our midst, substantially, really present in the Holy Eucharist.
Jesus who fulfils the promise made to his disciples and to his people now is our hope our source and summit, sacrifice re-enacted on the altar with the power to heal through fragility in brokenness and to bring reconciliation and renewal.
And so we join together in thanking the Lord for these gifts he gives us as we profess our faith in him as our risen Lord and we pray for all our needs in the sure hope that he will guide us and strengthen us on our pilgrimage of faith.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ