1st Week of Easter – Wednesday B

Published on 2 April 2024 at 20:52

Today is Easter Wednesday, just the third day after the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. Our joy remains ecstatic like that of the Apostles and blessed souls who have seen Jesus by now. Yet even we who haven’t seen him are specially chosen and blessed in our trusting faith for, “Blessed are those who believe without seeing” John 20:29. In fact, for the Easter Octave (the first eight days of Easter) a lot of the greetings and expressions and blessings throughout Holy Mass remain the same as was celebrated on Easter Sunday morning. Such are the joy and elation that our Lord’s victory ought to instill in us.

In today’s first reading, we have a beautiful memoir from those early days of the Resurrection. Saints Peter and John were heading into the temple at 3pm to pray when they encounter the paralytic who upon seeing them going in asked for alms. Peter looks at him with love and says that he has something more precious than money to give him--more precious than "gold and silver". In Jesus’ name he restores the paralytic to health and instead of going home with just twenty bucks in his pocket, he left with all his faculties restored. Actually, he hung around a bit and cling to Peter who had just healed him. This causes a stir, of course. Now that Jesus was done away with, the authorities never imagined they'd have to contend with his followers who kept bringing up his name in their preaching and that salvation was to be found in him alone.  

Now, as always, the timelessness and depth of the Word of God gives us much to ponder. 

For example, let's just consider the detail of the time it was when the two went into the temple to pray: 3pm. Sound familiar to all the Divine Mercy people? Sure does. The three stipulated times of prayer for Judaism were midmorning (the third hour or 9am), the time of the evening sacrifice (the ninth hour or 3pm), and sunset from 6pm onwards. Immediately one will notice a semblance to our Liturgy of the Hours. A lot of what was practiced in the Old Covenant has now been Christianized and adapted to the New Covenant because the old is fulfilled and perfected in the new. At this early stage in the Church’s life, it is interesting to see the apostles retaining these prayerful customs, yet their thoughts and hearts would have been so enriched in those days with additional meditations on the risen Savior. These are two of the “top” apostles and yet they feel the need to give themselves to prayer, notwithstanding Jesus' promises that he would be with them always and to not be afraid. This means  that they had understood the essence of prayer—to continue building their relationship with the Lord, in love. As they ran together to the tomb, now they run together to the temple to pray! They are thirsting for the living God.

3pm, as we just mentioned, has now become for us the hour of mercy, which for them also would have signalled a remembrance of the loving sacrifice and death of Jesus on the cross. Notice, this episode in which they go to pray at this particular hour is post-resurrection. The two apostles now have already encountered Jesus risen from the dead. And yet, as we just indicated, their thoughts and prayers are most likely reverting back to the Passion and also their bitter regret at having initially abandoned Jesus in his most crucial hour. This flies in the face of that ideology which would promote a bare cross, without the body of our Lord, on the grounds that Jesus is alive and glorious and so "we shouldn't think of him as being on the cross." This would be misguided spirituality for the somber rememberance of Christ's suffering would appear to even take place in heaven! The book of Revelation describes how John saw the risen and glorified Lord as the Lamb, as if bearing the marks of his slaughter. In other words, the scars of his wounds. A meditation of Jesus' sufferings only increases within us his true identity and that it was necessary that he suffer so as to enter his glory. Lift high the cross—with Jesus on it, therefore as a perpetual reminder to us of how much our redemption costs. “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He” John 8:28. Jesus never envisioned the power of the cross without him on it! Neither should we. 

Yet we see another awesome thing happening here—the comradery and the loving unity of mind and purpose between Peter and John reminds us that the gospel will be preached not primarily by an individual, although this happens, but by the entire community of believers who are united as Saint Paul describes, in “…one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all..”  Ephesians 4:45. James, who was made by our Lord the first bishop of Jerusalm, wasn’t there with them, but it is these three that our Lord had taken up Mount Tabor, manifesting his glorious divinity to them at his Transfiguration. They were elevated by Jesus, and considered by the rest of the apostles and early Christians, the three pillars of the early Church.

So here we have Peter and John, mystics, for all intents and purposes, heading to the temple to pray together. What wonders they had experienced together having been witnesses to so many of the Lord's prodigies. Peter walking up those steps to the temple, whose feet once walked on the sea at the behest of the Master. John, who though was present for numerous wonders, who comes to be known as the beloved disciple, still has this need to be with God in prayer. What marvellous strength, therefore, they found in one another! For, who could understand the joy and sentiments of Peter better than John? Who could understand John’s gospel and preaching and appreciate it more than Peter? Have we ever thought of asking them or any of the other apostles to pray for us? Have we ever tried to become more friendly with any of them? Have we ever thought of how wonderful it will be, if by God’s grace and mercy we are allowed entrance into heaven, that we will have an eternity to get to know all these amazing saints of God? Why wait? It can happen now. Take it to prayer. 

We would be remiss if we did not comment on the gospel of today which is the beautiful account of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus. They’re distraught, and still not believing the women who told them that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. Jesus walks up to these two men, and walks right beside them, and they’re thinking he’s a nomad wanderer who doesn’t know what’s happening in Israel. They didn't recognize him! With some delicious irony, they ask him if he’s the only one who hasn’t heard about the things going on. Jesus plays along and asks not so innocently, “What things?”

First of all, why didn’t they recognize him? What was so different about him. His glorious appearance may have been keeping them from noticing it was him. Maybe they had preconceived ideas of what he should look like, risen from the dead. Maybe we got the same thing happening in that head of ours. Which goes to show us that our relationship with God must transcend mere expectation and flow into a more tranquil acceptance of his truth and will. We recognize someone mostly by their mannerisms, their values, their way of expressing themselves, so that even should their exterior appearance change somewhat, we can still recognize it's them. This is the level of intimacy Jesus invites us to--to be able to penetrate beneath the humble, unassuming host which has been consecrated at Holy Mass, and see within it the God of the universe. When we spoke about Saint Mary Magdalene not recognizing him, we mentioned how that now we would need to be able to discern him beneath new forms, in new ways of seeing him. These disciples get to Emmaus and invite the Lord to stay with them. Notice how the Lord never imposes himself. He always seeks our permission to come in. He always waits for the invitation. When we go to Mass, he becomes present, but it is only through us making sure we are in a state of grace, and loving him, that we invite him into our lives through the Eucharist. These disciples recognized him in the breaking of the bread and their hearts were filled with joy. This is a new way of "seeing" the Lord.

As we continue throughout the Easter season, we ask the Lord, through the intercession of our Blessed Mother, to continue filling us with his holy presence and to open our eyes to the gift of his presence among us.


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