Tag: <span>Easter</span>

April 7, 2021March 18, 2021

Anticipation

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

There is something beautiful and exciting about anticipation.

Peter told the cripple in today’s first reading, “Look at us.” The man looked at them, full of excited anticipation, thinking that he was going to receive alms, perhaps something generous, given Peter’s response to him. What he received exceeded his wildest expectations–he immediately experienced strength in his limbs, and the ability to walk. He was fully cured.

It is interesting to note that the man did not expect this. In the gospels, the people whom Jesus cures seem always to expect it, to see it coming. To cure is a native trait, as it were, of Jesus. It is simply something that He does; in a sense, something that He is.

Not so for the disciples. They are mere creatures, with the same human limitations that we all endure. But the Holy Spirit gives them the divine power to accomplish what He asks of them, when He asks it of them. It is a borrowed power, in a sense; not native. But this is what makes our role as Christians, with all our humanity and limitations, particularly exciting. God will not hesitate to “lend” us the power, not to do what we think good, but to do specifically what He asks of us through promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, there is something beautiful and exciting about anticipation. We see it in today’s gospel, too. As Jesus explains the fulfillment of the Scriptures in the life of the Messiah, the disciples feel a burning excitement of anticipation. They don’t know what’s coming. But they can sense it is something spectacular having to do with Jesus. Even when He is revealed to them in the breaking of the bread, they are left in a state of excited anticipation, as He is immediately removed from their presence, in the most mysterious way.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to fill you with the joy, not of glorious enjoyment, but of anticipation that comes with the Resurrection. Ask Him to apply that excitement to everything that forms part of your life, the highs and the lows–all of which are filled with the promise of your own resurrection from death, and opportunity to offer your life for the resurrection to life of your fellow humans.

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April 6, 2021March 18, 2021

Are We There Yet?

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

The Resurrection of Jesus is beautifully mysterious. In its monumental power, it holds an air of great expectancy: There is an “already” aspect to it, and a “not yet” aspect.

The “already” aspect can be seen empirically in today’s gospel; Jesus has clearly “already” risen. And yet, the “not yet” aspect is there too. “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” It’s as though Jesus’ earthly resurrected embodiment is just a way station on the path to the definitive glory He will enter, and which we will one day enjoy with Him.

We see this dichotomy likewise in the first reading. The power of the resurrected Christ is “already” present, leading to the conversion and baptism of three thousand persons in a day. And yet, what the apostles are “selling,” so to speak, is described as a “promise,” not as a “fulfillment” in the here and now.

Because of the “not yet” element, the Resurrection, perhaps like few other mysteries, provides us with the opportunity of a glorious faith and hope. Even though there will be no joy like definitive possession of God, there is also a special pleasure in the anticipation we can enjoy as we await the full revelation of the Resurrection in which we believe.

Heightening this anticipation is another mystery that we see in today’s gospel: Mary at first does not recognize Jesus, just like the two disciples on their way to Emmaus in another passage. Jesus is Jesus, He is real, He can eat and be touched…but there is something gloriously different about Him, which the Gospel does not fully describe to us.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to fill your heart with the joy of hope, even though you do not yet experience the full joy of eternal revelation.

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April 5, 2021March 17, 2021

The Peak

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

“You will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.”

Peter points out that David’s prophecy in today’s psalm did not apply to himself, for (rather poignantly), King David’s tomb was present and known to the Jews of Peter’s time.

Rather, Peter tells us that David penned these lines from the psalm with an eye to the promise that his descendant would reign forever; in other words, he penned them with an eye to Jesus’ Resurrection.

Very dramatically, Jesus’ Resurrection is portrayed as the very peak, the epicenter of history itself: The fulfillment of all David, Israel’s greatest king, was looking for. And so it is.

When the Gospel writers use the word “Behold” (“Ecce” in Latin, “ἰδοὺ” in Greek), it seems to signal something powerful and momentous. “Behold the man,” says Pilate, as he displays Jesus before the crowds, impressed at His poise and serenity after being scourged nearly to death.

And today’s gospel uses the word when it presents the risen Jesus for the first time. “And behold, Jesus met them on their way.”

Just like that, Jesus is back, full again of poise and serenity, returned from the dead.

Jesus has risen, never to die again. He is risen, among us now. How we would like to encounter Him, as the women suddenly did when He met them on the way!

While this earthly life is our time of suffering, let us remember that He will come meet us, as He did the women, if we ask Him to.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to encounter you as He did the women. More than likely, He will not take your sufferings away, and He will not solve all your earthly problems. But, as He did for the women, He will give you the inestimable consolation of His presence.

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April 4, 2021March 17, 2021

Quiet Night

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

The Cross was loud; the Resurrection, silent.

The Cross was public; the Resurrection, private.

And yet the Cross was weakness; the Resurrection, strength.

The Cross was impotence; the Resurrection, power.

“My Kingdom is not of this world,” said Christ to Pilate on Good Friday.

The power of His Resurrection came to bear in this world, but there were few witnesses in this world, and those there were, immediately fainted to unconsciousness.

And after the Resurrection, as St. Peter says in the first reading, God “granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us,” His intimate friends.

Understand, Christian, that however much joy God may give you in this life, He is jealously guarding the full manifestation of His glory and your glorious destiny for eternity where, as St. Paul says in today’s second reading, “your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Easter will be a day of disappointment if we expect all our earthly problems and sufferings to go away. For us, it is a day of hope, not of fulfillment. Thank Jesus for dying and rising from the dead for you. Tell Him you do not expect fulfillment now, but that you exult in the hope that He has given you this day: hope that you will one day imbibe the fullness of His glory.

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