Cycle A - Year II:  

4 May 2014: Third Sunday of Easter 

(Liturgical color: White)

Luke 24:13-35

Walking with the risen Lord!

Life is a journey. And the Good News for those who believe is that God travels with us in our journey of  life. Do we always recognize Him?

We hear this Sunday from St. Luke  the Gospel event of the two disciples of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. They were leaving Jerusalem after the brutal death of Jesus because they did not know what to do next. A crucified redeemer tends to ruin expectations.

The risen Lord appears and walks with the disciples, engaging them in a

conversation. They talk about the recent events that had occurred in Jerusalem. The two disciples were so discouraged that they failed to recognize the risen Christ in their midst.

Why was it difficult for the disciples to recognize the risen Lord? Well, they had hoped that Jesus is the Messiah who will redeem Israel. And so his brutal death on the cross naturally scattered his disciples and shattered their hopes and dreams. They saw the cross as defeat and could not comprehend the empty tomb, until the Lord appeared to them and gave them understanding.

Going back to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus chided them for their slowness of heart to believe what the scriptures had said concerning the Messiah. And they did not recognize the risen Christ until He broke bread with them.

In practical life, we also have our own walk towards our own "Emmaus". We also have our own disappointment and our own failures and failed expectations about our faith. So often we are tempted to wander our own way because of lack of faith or lack of understanding of what God is doing, or not doing, in our life. What then should we do?

Faith in the Lord's Resurrection will lead us out of our own road to "Emmaus". Like the two disciples in this Gospel event, let us also invite Jesus, "Stay with us, Lord!"

Pope Francis says that we need to frequently receive the Lord in the Holy Eucharist so that we can recognize Him as He travels with us in this journey of life. As we frequent Holy Mass and the Eucharist, may the Lord set our hearts on fire and make us witnesses that indeed our Lord Jesus is truly risen  and is alive in our midst.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!

Cycle A - Year II:  

27 April 2014: Second Sunday of Easter 

(Liturgical color: White)

John 20: 19-31

Believe with your heart!

The Lord is risen indeed! But he has not yet appeared to the disciples, who kept themselves locked in a room for fear of the Jews.

Although the disciples already heard from Simon Peter, John and Mary of Magdala that Jesus is alive, the more they were afraid to face the risen Jesus because they were cowardly during the passion and death of their Master.

Yet when the risen Christ appeared to his disciples, he greets them, "Peace be with you."

In other words, the Lord's first words to the disciples are a declaration of forgiveness, peace, and mercy, even before they disciples can even ask forgiveness for their unfaithfulness and cowardice.

Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles, was not with them when the risen Lord first appeared. And he refused to believe and said, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."

A week later the risen Lord appeared again and this time Thomas was with them. So Thomas saw and believed. But Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

In practical life, we too are often fearful to face the risen Lord. Because we spend so much time focusing on our sins and failures and not enough on God's mercy. Or we sometimes feel like the doubting Thomas --our faith is not strong enough to withstand suffering, trials and evils in our world. That is why like Thomas we demand clear signs of Jesus' victory over death and sin.

The Good News this Sunday is that God's mercy precedes our sins, precisely because of Jesus' saving work. That means, we are forgiven long before we even think of sinning. God only waits for us to claim the mercy already prepared for us through the saving work of Jesus.

In the Holy Eucharist at Mass, let us pray that like Thomas, may the risen Christ open our eyes to the power of the Resurrection and transform our doubts and fear into confident faith and boundless joy. 

Today is also Divine Mercy Sunday, promoted by Sr. Faustina Kowalska. Let us claim our own share of God's divine mercy, which the heart of the risen Jesus has in abundance for all of us. Let us believe with our hearts that indeed Christ is risen, Alleluia, alleluia!

Also this Sunday, the Universal Church will canonize two recent popes, John XXIII and John Paul II. May they be inspirations for us and proclaim the Resurrection of our Lord through our Christian living in the modern world.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God. 

Ad Jesum per Mariam!

Cycle A - Year II:  

20 April 2014: Easter Sunday

(Liturgical color: White)

John 20:1-9

The Lord is risen! Alleluia!

Psalm 118 sets the tone of today's liturgical celebration: "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!" For our Lord has risen! Alleluia, alleluia!

The Good News this Sunday is from John, the beloved Apostle. The gist of the gospel narratives: When Mary of Magdala came to visit the tomb where they laid the body of Jesus early morning on the third day, she saw the stone cover already removed from the entrance of the tomb, and the tomb empty. Hurriedly she went back to the other disciples and reported what she saw. Simon Peter and John went with Mary again to the empty tomb. There they saw the burial clothes and the cloth that covered Jesus' head neatly rolled up in a separate place. They saw and believed that the Lord is risen, even when they did not yet understand what is written in the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

Thus, by the account and personal testimonies of his closest disciples, Jesus is risen and wins over sin and death for all of us. The Resurrection of our Lord is the very cornerstone of our Christian faith. Because if Jesus did not rise to redeem us from sin, then everything we did during the Holy Week, and everything we do now, is meaningless.

Let us reflect more deeply on the event of Resurrection itself:

The Resurrection reveals an entirely new dimension of existence. A resurrected body is a glorified body, not subject anymore to the physical limitations, and not even to diseases and death; it is a body that enjoys a certain luminous glow and total perfection. In the single event of the Resurrection, Christ's human body and human soul were reunited.

And so we believe that at the final judgment, every human body will be reconstituted in a glorified state and rejoined to the soul that once animated it, either to enjoy the eternal bliss of heaven, or the eternal fires of hell.

In the Catholic Church, Easter is the principal feast of the ecclesiastical year. That is why it is called the greatest feast (festum festorum). Our Lord's Resurrection is a concrete and historical event which is the strength and foundation of Christianity. 

But while the Apostles testified as eye witnesses, and we also have the evidence of an empty tomb of Jesus, the Resurrection is still a matter of faith for it reveals a level of existence well beyond ordinary human comprehension for now.

Yet, if we want more proof of Christ's Resurrection, the martyrdom of the Apostles (except for John who was not martyred) is our "proof" that the Resurrection really happened. The Apostles' faith, experience, and witnessing of Jesus led them to give their lives as martyrs because they knew and they were assured of the Resurrection so long as they remained faithful to the Lord until the end. And so they did.

Easter invites us to be witnesses as well to the world that Christ is truly risen. Through our authentic Christian living, we must be like liberated and joyful People of God in whatever situation of earthly life, repentant and full of hope and happiness. Because united with our risen Lord we, too, become children once more of our heavenly Father, looking forward to the promise of a new, transcendent and glorified existence as a reward of our fidelity to our Lord Jesus Christ until the end of time.

Happy Easter to all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!