3rd.
Sunday of Eastertide
(Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19; 1st.
John 2:1-5; Luke 24:35-48)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, once again we have a beautiful Eastertide apparition of the Risen Lord Jesus to His disciples which we are privileged to share with them in Mother Church thanks to her holy Scriptures.
Jesus
appeared to the Eleven in Jerusalem as they were gathered together discussing
the report of two disciples who claimed to have met the Lord Jesus -- risen
from the dead -- as they had been on their way to Emmaus. To prove that they were not mistaken they had
told the Apostles about the meal they had shared with Jesus, just like the meal
they had all shared together at the Last Supper. The Apostles gathered there in secret in
Jerusalem were amazed to hear what had transpired on the way to Emmaus, and, as
they were considering together what it all might mean, suddenly Jesus Himself
was standing there in the room with them.
Despite His greeting:
Peace be with you,
they
– thinking they were seeing a ghost -- were terrified and frightened to such an
extent that Jesus went straight on to say to them:
“Why
are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I
Myself. Touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see
I have." And as He said this, He
showed them His hands and His feet.
Jesus
had no recriminations for His Apostles, just an assurance about the reality and
truth of what they were actually seeing and experiencing.
Thereupon,
He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures, just
as they had heard He had done for those two disciples on the way to Emmaus.
Now
let us turn our attention to the Apostle Peter in our first reading today, addressing
the devout Jews gathered in the portico of the Temple in Jerusalem immediately
after he, Peter, together with John, had made a man, lame from birth, walk
upright for the first time:
The
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant
Jesus, Whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was
determined to let Him go. But you denied
the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. The author of life you put to death but God
raised Him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.
Peter
was taking great care to do precisely what the Risen Jesus had commanded His
Apostles when He said that:
Repentance
and remission of sins should be preached in (Jesus’) name to all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem.
Peter,
who had wept so profusely over his own denials of the Lord, was immensely
grateful that Jesus, appearing so unexpectedly in that upper room had no words
of recrimination but only a peaceful greeting and comforting exhortations to
confidence; and he, Peter, was now trying to follow his Master’s example:
Now I know, brothers that you acted
out of ignorance.
Peter
was, indeed, following the example of his Master so closely that not only did
he not condemn those who had been led into sin, but he even refrained from
condemning those who had been responsible for thus leading them astray:
Now
I know, brothers that you acted out of ignorance just as your leaders did.
However,
since for disciples of Jesus there can be no repentance without sin being
acknowledged, therefore he, Peter, was trying first of all to lead his fellow
Jews to recognize and acknowledge their sins as he himself had so
broken-heartedly acknowledged his own public betrayal of his Lord and Master. That done, no recriminations, no accusations,
just what the Apostles themselves, above all, what Peter himself, had received
from Jesus, understanding and forgiveness:
Brethren,
those things which God foretold by the mouths of all His prophets, that the
Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.
Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.
Indeed,
Peter then went on to add some further encouragement, saying:
Repent
therefore and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, that the Lord may
grant you times of refreshment.
There
we see something of the beauty of the Church and there we realise why we call
her Mother Church: because she uses the Scriptures, given into her care by her
Lord, for our refreshing, that
is, for our comfort and strengthening, for our consolation, and enlightenment.
People
of God, the Church has too often been accused of preaching hatred of the Jews, and
we should notice that there was no hatred in Mother Church’s earliest response
to the Jews through her supreme leader on earth, Peter the Rock who, having openly
declared the guilt of both People of Israel and their leaders, also went on the
say:
Brethren,
I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers;
and
was able to look forward to times of refreshing coming from the presence of the
Lord. Notice what is happening in our
days, however.
Our
Blessed Lord’s whole life and dreadful death was for one purpose only,
God’s supreme glorification through mankind’s repentance for sin committed and
grateful acceptance of forgiveness given, in Jesus by the Spirit.
Moreover,
the very first thing our Risen Lord did on appearing to His Apostles
hiding for fear of the Jews in the upper room, was to open their minds to
understand the Scriptures and say:
Thus
it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead on the
third day, and THAT REPENTANCE FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS WOULD BE PROCLAIMED in
His name to all the nations. You are
witnesses of these things and I am sending forth the promise of My Father (the
Holy Spirit) upon you (to cloth you with power from on high). (Luke 24:46-49)
And
again, in St. John’s Gospel this time, the Risen Jesus immediately equips His Church
to take up her supreme task:
Jesus
breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose
sins you forgive are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain are retained. (John 20: 22-23)
But
we, today, we hear so little of forgiveness of sins being officially proclaimed
as necessary in our modern context of a supremely sinful and proudly sinful
world society. We hear of brotherly
love, a better and fairer world for all, and much other such pious moralism,
but so very, very, little that is immediately pertinent and necessary to
protect Christians and Catholics in a world blatantly ‘pushing’ sins of choice as
popular standard bearers in a cohesive rebellion again previous Christian values
and standards, now abandoned or totally rejected. The whole ‘modern’ world is proclaiming sin
as natural and therefore morally acceptable, while we Catholics and Christians
hear merely ‘official’ platitudes which are ‘right’, we know, but which are not
the Christian message necessary for our times, especially with regard to
believers who have not yet experienced years of witness to and public practice
of, the faith of our fathers and the background of our culture.
Now,
our great hope, as Christians, is for the return in glory of the Lord when He
will establish God’s Kingdom here on earth and finalise God’s triumph over all
evil. That will indeed be -- as Peter
said -- a time of refreshing. However,
even now, we can already enjoy a time of refreshing from the presence of the
Lord: for all devout Christians recognize and revere the presence of the Lord
in the Scriptures, particularly in the New Testament Scriptures; while, perhaps
even greater refreshing is offered to us Catholics who can participate in the
Eucharistic sacrifice and feast by receiving the very Body and Blood of Christ
in Holy Communion.
So,
from the readings set before us today by Mother Church, we have learnt
something about ourselves as Catholics: we should be here in Church, not simply
out of duty, not simply out of obligation, but for our refreshing as disciples
of Jesus!
We
heard St. John, also speaking to us for our refreshment today in the second
reading:
(Jesus)
Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for
the whole world. Now by this we know
that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.
Now,
anyone who is sincere in his or her desire to serve the Lord will, inevitably,
be only too well aware of their own failings, or their own inclination to sin
at times. It is therefore comforting to
hear John explain what makes a true disciple of the Lord, for he tells us that, although there are people who think themselves - and are often thought by
others - to be true disciples of Jesus because they have warm feelings for Him and
can speak effusive and/or enthusiastic words about Him, nevertheless,
in so far as they pay no close attention to His commandments, they are mistaken about themselves, and no sure guides
for others.
We
may be sure that we know Him if we keep His commandments.
And, today, dear People of God, a unique aspect of Christianity is largely
overlooked, if not deliberately ignored:
Forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
That
is the only conditional part of the prayer taught us by our Blessed Lord but it
is of momentous importance, because too many Christians today allow themselves
to be influenced by – and even at times profess admiration for – those who ‘get
their revenge’, or to make it seem a little better, ‘get even’. Dear people, there can be no point of honour
for a Christian to go so deliberately against Our Lord’s teaching; and any
attempt to justify such retaliatory behaviour can only ruin one’s own chances
of forgiveness by God.
God’s
commandments are the very core and centre of Jesus’ own relationship with His
Father, and of His Father’s love for mankind:
I
do not speak on My own, but the Father Who sent Me commanded Me what to say and
speak. And I know that His commandment
is eternal life. (John
12:49-50)
God’s
commandments are eternal life and express divine love; and because Jesus
understood, appreciated, and appropriately accepted them as such He was able to
redeem all mankind. Consequently, such
commandments must not be manipulated and adulterated – by pseudo disciples of
the Lord -- for the human expression of pretentious, and ultimately false, love
and deadly pride.
Whoever
loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to
him. Whoever loves Me will keep My word,
and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with
him.
Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, may we leave Church today gratefully
strengthened and bountifully refreshed for the service of, and witness to,
Mother Church who is so divinely wise as to cling resolutely to her Scriptures
and to her earliest and most firmly established traditions and teachings in the
face of all modern flights of intellectual froth and proud fancy (not true scholarship) or tides of
popular, emotional feeling (not true
devotion). And being thus herself
obedient to her Lord and His foundation truths, she has not failed us; indeed,
she has called us, in His Name, to come here obediently today and rewarded us
with the most sublime nourishment and comfort for our souls.
