Apr 07 2008
Third Sunday of Easter
As we savor the joy of Easter, we pray with Pope Benedict that all Christians may never tire of proclaiming with their lives that the resurrection of Jesus is the source of hope and peace. Archbishop Michael Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, spoke of this hope and the challenge to forgive in his Easter Sunday homily. Let us reflect on his words which include a reference to today’s Gospel.
Christ is risen. We pray this morning, and our prayer is universal just like Christ’s own prayer. It embraces all of humanity…. That is what Easter means for us: death that leads to life, to the Resurrection. Death, which becomes through the power of love and forgiveness a redemptive power, creates a new man, a new person. To pass from death to life, that is the meaning of Easter, that is the meaning of Christian hope: all death, all difficulties lead to renewed life. Death will not remain a death, and difficulties will not remain the occasion for sterile suffering. No one has the right to turn personal suffering, even great and incomprehensible, into a prison for oneself or for generations to come. The sufferings of Christ, his Passion, were great and incomprehensible. He was counted among criminals, as foretold by the Prophets. But he loved and forgave: “He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” (John 13: 1). On the cross, as he was suffering, he said: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23: 33).His disciples also ran the risk of turning their sufferings into a prison for themselves: “We were hoping that he was the one who would set Israel free” (Luke 24: 21), said the disciples of Emmaus. Jesus, walking again with them after the Resurrection, freed them from their frustration and from the failure they thought they had had because they had followed him. After Jesus had instructed them once again, their discouragement was transformed into their walking anew toward Jerusalem, “they returned to Jerusalem,” and into their announcing the Resurrection. We have seen the Lord. He is alive. He has given us life again.
Today’s Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-23; Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-11; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Luke 25:13-35
