Third Sunday

3rd Sunday of Easter, Cycle C (2)

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The Lamb in today’s Second Reading, surrounded by everyone and everything falling down in worship before him, is the same person who makes breakfast for the disciples in today’s Gospel after a long night fishing. Do we let that sink in? You cannot pigeonhole Our Lord in once place and role or the other: if you try to either just place Our Lord in Heaven or on the shore cooking breakfast, you cannot understand what motivates him. He deserves our adoration, and woe to us if we don’t give it to them. At the same time, he wants our love. He doesn’t need our love, but he wants it.

In today’s First Reading the Apostles are happy to have suffered dishonor for the sake of Jesus, because they knew he was worthy of both their love and their adoration. The Sanhedrin were the religious authorities of Israel until Our Lord came and turned that all on its head. They had him executed, but the Lord rose from the dead to show they no longer had authority over him or anyone else in the eyes of God. They never believed in Our Lord, so when reports start coming in of what Peter and the other Apostles are preaching they filter it, out of a lack of faith, and see the Apostles as simply seeking to incriminate them for the injustice they’d done. They order the Apostles to no longer speak in Jesus’ name.

Peter’s response on behalf of the Apostles shows that they adore Jesus as Lord: “We must obey God rather than men.” After all they’ve lived and experienced, they are obliged to teach, preach, and act in Jesus’ name. Everyone knows that doing what you’re obliged to do does not always make you happy. The Apostles leave the Sanhedrin’s presence “rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.” That reaction does not come from obligation. It comes from love. The Lord loved them and suffered so much for them that they are happy to love and suffer for him in return, just as every believer should be.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that he wants unconditional love from us, but also realizes our weakness and failings. It is not reflected in the English translations of this passage, but in the three times Jesus asks Peter “do you love me?”, the Greek original shows us Jesus is inviting Peter to profess the greatest love a man can have, and, gently, Peter responds that he is not up to that after everything that has happened between them. It passes from an invitation to ἀγαπάω (a deep and unconditional love) to φιλέω (a brotherly love or an openness to friendship). In the first invitation Jesus asks Peter if his love is deep and unconditional, and Peter responds that he has a brotherly love for Jesus. In the second invitation, Jesus asks Peter the same thing and Peter responds the same way: not a deep and unconditional love, but a brotherly love. Finally, in the third invitation, Jesus asks Peter whether his love for him is brotherly, and Peter, hurt that he keeps asking, responds in kind.

With this invitation Jesus has brought it down to Peter’s level and Peter has had an opportunity to really explore and state his level of love for Jesus after having said before the Passion that his love was until death and then denied Jesus three times (see Luke 22:33–34 and John 18:15–27). Jesus asks us for complete and unconditional love, but when we are weak, the love we can muster is enough, if it is from the heart. As Jesus extended the invitation to Peter, who knows whether he was asking him if Peter was still so confident that his love for Our Lord was total, but in the love Peter offered, he was firm. Our love will always be imperfect, but it must be firm, trying to grow and never losing ground.

God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth, created us out of love, but when we estranged ourselves from him he came to love us in Person. Even as believers we sometimes focus on loving those distant from us at the expense of those who are closest to us, whether at home, at work, or at school. Our familiarity with those closest to us sometimes makes it more of a challenge to love them than to love a total stranger. Make an extra effort this week to love those closest to you this week. Our Lord came down from Heaven to be close to us and love us in Person.

Readings: Acts 5:27–32, 40b–41; Psalm 30:2, 4–6, 11–13; Revelation 5:11–14; John 21:1–19. See also 3rd Sunday of Easter, Cycle C, 2nd Week of Easter, Thursday (2), 7th Week of Easter, Friday and Easter Friday.

3rd Sunday of Easter, Cycle A

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The Easter season is a time for rejoicing that Our Lord has shattered the bonds of death through his Resurrection. We celebrate his victory because it is our victory as well. He didn’t just shatter the bonds of death for himself, but for all of us.

St. Peter in today’s First Reading proclaims to the astounded crowds at Pentecost that it was impossible for Christ to be held by the throes of death. Peter makes allusion to David because he is convincing his listeners through giving witness to Christ’s Resurrection that Our Lord is the Messiah. The real conquest of the Messiah is death. When the Lord promised David that one of his descendants would be the Messiah he said that descendant would reign forever (see 2 Samuel 7:12-13: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.”). The angel Gabriel told the same announcement to Mary: “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). Our Lord was that descendant of David, the Messiah. It goes without saying that forever is a long time. Dynasties rise and fall, but David’s endures forever in Our Lord’s because it was impossible for Christ to be held by the throes of death: “God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death.” Peter quotes Psalm 16 and attributes it to David (as the psalms traditionally are) as a prophecy that David knew death would be conquered for him too, through his descendant who would reign forever.

In today’s Second Reading St. Peter reminds us that Our Lord’s blood paid the ransom for our life as well. Through his death and Resurrection the chains of our slavery have been shattered. When Peter speaks of the “futile conduct” handed on by our ancestors he is speaking of sin, including Original Sin, which in some mysterious way spreads to us all and separates us from God. Death came into the world due to sin, and even when we are ignorant of sin, death is a reminder of its presence and its evil. If death had the last world, everything we do in life is futile. Whether our achievements are noble or base, they’d come to nothing. Heaven doesn’t take Visa, MasterCard, or Bitcoin. There’s only one “currency” that grants us eternal life: the blood of Christ. We know that “currency” works because Christ was raised from the dead, and that encourages us to believe and to hope that if we sojourn in a way pleasing to Our Heavenly Father we too will be ransomed from death and our conduct will be worthwhile from here to eternity.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord helps two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus to see that their hopes were misplaced because they didn’t factor in the Resurrection properly. As far as they were concerned, Our Lord was dead. The Messiah was supposed to live forever, but he was dead, so Jesus was just another prophet. There’s a subtle difference between the vocation of the Messiah and the vocation of the prophet: the prophets spoke on behalf of God and performed signs to back it up, but, ultimately, they were rejected and killed. In the disciples’ mind, Jesus fit that pattern perfectly, as events revealed. The Messiah would redeem Israel, and, apparently, Jesus didn’t do it: “…we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel…” Yet they had some facts that they didn’t know how to process: women announcing that angels had announced that Jesus was alive, but their buddies finding only an empty tomb. Our Lord, with all the pastoral tact merited by the case replies, in so many words, “Duh!” He called them foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. He helped them connect the dots. The clincher was when he revealed who he was to them. They only saw a glimpse of him before he vanished, but that was enough. They ran back to their buddies to share the news and found out they’d had a visit too.

The world today is plagued by people who do not have someone in their life who cares enough about them to tell them “Duh!” once in a while when they’re being foolish. We’re so steeped in a relativistic culture and mindset that no one wants to impose his or her view on someone else, yet when someone is walking off a cliff, figuratively or literally, relativism goes right out the window. Every Christian must admit that Jesus’ response to the disbelief and dashed hopes of the disciples on the road to Emmaus could have easily been said to any one of us when our faith and hope start to wane: “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!” Let’s go to Christ in prayer this week and tell Our Lord, “Lord, I am ready for my ‘Duh!’ moment. Tell me what I need to hear. Turn me away from the cliff.”

Readings: Acts 2:14, 22–33; Psalm 16:1–2, 5, 7–11; 1 Peter 1:17–21; Luke 24:13–35.

3rd Sunday of Easter, Cycle C

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The Lamb in today’s Second Reading, surrounded by everyone and everything falling down in worship before him, is the same person who makes breakfast for the disciples in today’s Gospel after a long night fishing. Do we let that sink in? Peter and the disciples did, which is why in today’s First Reading they were happy to have suffered dishonor for the sake of Jesus. You cannot pigeonhole Our Lord in once place and role or he other: if you try to either just place Our Lord in Heaven or on the shore cooking breakfast, you cannot understand what motivates him. He doesn’t just want our adoration; actually, he deserves that and woe to us if we don’t give it to them. He wants our love. He doesn’t need our love, but he wants it.

We can all stand in Peter’s place in today’s Gospel. A burst of enthusiasm has us running toward the Lord, but also, after the initial emotion, in our hearts, he asks us, over and over, “Do you love me?” We have the same hesitation in responding as Peter; we know there are moments when we haven’t loved him and moments where we haven’t loved him as much as we should. They are moments where we wouldn’t have adored him in Heaven or stood up for him on earth, but he never stopped being there for us, and he never will.

Put yourself in Peter’s shoes today and respond to Our Lord’s questions from wherever you’re at regarding your relationship with him. Just like Peter, he will coax a greater love out of you if you let him.

Readings: Acts 5:27–32, 40b–41; Psalm 30:2, 4–6, 11–13; Revelation 5:11–14; John 21:1–19. See also 2nd Week of Easter, Thursday (2), 7th Week of Easter, Friday and Easter Friday.

3rd Sunday of Easter

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Readings: Acts 3:13–15, 17–19; Psalm 4:2, 4, 7–9; 1 John 2:1–5a; Luke 24:35–48.

Sacred Scripture is a narration of salvation history. God through many human authors seeks to communicate a message of love and salvation when that love is rejected. In today’s Gospel, just as with the disciples on the way to Emmaus, Our Lord tries to help the disciples understand what Scripture said about him in order to understand the culmination of salvation history. Whether the disciples were distracted, weary, confused, or disinterested when he first taught them doesn’t matter; in today’s Gospel he opens their minds to understand the Scriptures and reminds them that they have to be witnesses to him as the culmination of salvation history, a mission they are carrying out on Pentecost in the First Reading.

We as members of the Church continue to share the message of salvation that Jesus Christ entrusted to the Apostles. We try to be faithful to what Jesus teaches us and to the testimony that the Apostles handed down to us about him. This touches on two ways in which the Church is considered Apostolic: she is sustained by the testimony of the Apostles regarding Jesus, and she receives the mission to transmit that testimony and be faithful to it. When Jesus opened the minds of the Apostles he gave them a gift of the Holy Spirit to understand Scripture and help them be faithful witnesses to everything he said and did, as well as everything Scripture said about him. As Catholics we believe that the Apostles then handed on this gift of the Holy Spirit to their successors and that apostolic succession continues to this day in the bishops, another reason for which the Church is considered Apostolic. This help of the Holy Spirit in determining the authentic teachings on faith and morals in Scripture and tradition is called today the Magisterium.

Let’s pray for all members of the Church to be faithful recipients and witnesses to the testimony about Jesus handed down to us from the Apostles. Let’s ask Our Lord to open our minds to understand everything Scripture says about him in order to communicate it to others.