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| “Christ Takes Leave of His Disciples” Artist and Date are UNKNOWN |
Readings and Commentary:[3]
Reading 1: Acts
3:11-26
As the crippled man who had
been cured clung to Peter and John,
all the people hurried in
amazement toward them
in the portico called
"Solomon's Portico."
When Peter saw this, he
addressed the people,
"You children of Israel,
why are you amazed at this,
and why do you look so
intently at us
as if we had made him walk by
our own power or piety?
The God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
the God of our fathers, has
glorified his servant Jesus
whom you handed over and
denied in Pilate's presence,
when he had decided to
release him.
You denied the Holy and
Righteous One
and asked that a murderer be
released to you.
The author of life you put to
death,
but God raised him from the
dead; of this we are witnesses.
And by faith in his name,
this man, whom you see and
know, his name has made strong,
and the faith that comes
through it
has given him this perfect
health,
in the presence of all of
you.
Now I know, brothers and
sisters,
that you acted out of
ignorance, just as your leaders did;
but God has thus brought to
fulfillment
what he had announced
beforehand
through the mouth of all the
prophets,
that his Christ would suffer.
Repent, therefore, and be
converted, that your sins may be wiped away,
and that the Lord may grant
you times of refreshment
and send you the Christ
already appointed for you, Jesus,
whom heaven must receive
until the times of universal restoration
of which God spoke through
the mouth
of his holy prophets from of
old.
For Moses said:
A prophet like me will
the Lord, your God, raise up for you
from among your own kin;
to him you shall listen
in all that he may say to you.
Everyone who does not
listen to that prophet
will be cut off from the
people.
"Moreover, all the
prophets who spoke,
from Samuel and those
afterwards, also announced these days.
You are the children of the
prophets
and of the covenant that God
made with your ancestors
when he said to Abraham,
In your offspring all
the families of the earth shall be blessed.
For you first, God raised up
his servant and sent him to bless you
by turning each of you from
your evil ways."
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Commentary on Acts
3:11-26
Following the
earlier cure of the lame beggar, a crowd gathers in the temple area and Peter launches
into the second kerygmatic discourse or proclamations about the nature of
Christ. When Peter sees the Jews are amazed, in response to the crowd's
incredulity, he explains that the God anointed his "servant Jesus"
in the original Greek, the word used is "pias" it is
translated into Latin as "puer" which can be understood as
"slave/servant" and as "filius" -son. Peter uses the
same formula "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob" from Exodus
3:6. He also uses a new
title for the Savior, “The Author of
Life.”
"This second
address by St. Peter contains two parts: in the first (vv. 12-16) the apostle
explains that the miracle has been worked in the name of Jesus and through
faith in this name; in the second (vv. 17-26) he move his listeners to
repentance - people who were responsible in some degree for Jesus' death.
This discourse has the same purpose as that of Pentecost - to show the
power of God made manifest in Jesus Christ and to make the Jews see the
seriousness of their crime and have them repent."[4]
He concludes this
discourse with a call for conversion and repentance. He cites Moses prophecy
using a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 18:15,
demonstrating that Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled in Christ.
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm
8:2ab and 5, 6-7, 8-9
R. (2ab) O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in
all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia.
O LORD, our Lord,
how glorious is your name
over all the earth!
What is man that you should
be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you
should care for him?
R. O Lord, our God, how
wonderful your name in all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia.
You have made him little less
than the angels,
and crowned him with glory
and honor.
You have given him rule over
the works of your hands,
putting all things under his
feet.
R. O Lord, our God, how
wonderful your name in all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia.
All sheep and oxen,
yes, and the beasts of the
field,
The birds of the air, the
fishes of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths
of the seas.
R. O Lord, our God, how
wonderful your name in all the earth!
or:
R. Alleluia.
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Commentary on Ps
8:2ab and 5, 6-7, 8-9
Psalm 8 is
another of the songs of thanksgiving. In
this selection we hear the title “son of man” used.
It is, in this instance referring to the people as opposed to
Jesus. The song reflects on the creation
account from Genesis and how God gave man dominion over the life he had
created. The humility expressed in this song has that same sense of questioning
humility found in Hebrews
2:5-12.
It also marvels at the fact that God made his creation subject to man.
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Gospel: Luke
24:35-48
The disciples of Jesus
recounted what had taken place along the way,
and how they had come to
recognize him in the breaking of bread.
While they were still
speaking about this,
he stood in their midst and
said to them,
"Peace be with
you."
But they were startled and
terrified
and thought that they were
seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them,
"Why are you troubled?
And why do questions arise in
your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet,
that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a
ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have."
And as he said this,
he showed them his hands and
his feet.
While they were still incredulous
for joy and were amazed,
he asked them, "Have you
anything here to eat?"
They gave him a piece of
baked fish;
he took it and ate it in
front of them.
He said to them,
"These are my words that
I spoke to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about
me in the law of Moses
and in the prophets and
psalms must be fulfilled."
Then he opened their minds to
understand the Scriptures.
And he said to them,
"Thus it is written that
the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the
third day
and that repentance, for the
forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning
from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these
things."
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Commentary on Lk
24:35-48
This is the first
appearance of the risen Christ to the disciples in the locked room. It is significant that Thomas was not with
them. His role becomes important
later. Jesus shows the disciples his
wounds and then to prove he is corporeal (not a ghost), he asks for food and
eats in front of them.
Now satisfied
that they have seen and believe, the Lord brings them to understand that what
had taken place, his entire ministry, was to fulfill what God had previously
revealed through the Law and Prophets. He concludes pointedly by saying; “You are witnesses to these things” the implication being that, as witnesses,
they were to proclaim the new and complete revelation of the Father in Christ.
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Homily:
The mystery of the Lord’s
Supper held in the upper room is unraveled in the locked room. Even though Jesus is quoted in John as having
said “my body is true food and my blood true drink” (John
6:55), there are many who cannot
accept that Jesus left us the gift to his true body and blood in the
Eucharist. If he had done that, it is
argued, the bread and wine would change their outward appearance; they would
taste and feel differently.
So difficult was this to
accept that during the Reformation, protestants who had decided that they could
interpret sacred scripture as well as the Church decided that the last supper
was merely symbolic and that the words of St. John only a metaphor. They could not bring themselves to believe
that Christ would physically make himself available to all those who followed
him in faith. In essence, they put God
in a box of human understanding and would not allow the possibility of
something beyond their human logic.
Jesus’ appearance in the
locked room transforms our understanding of what is possible for God. We must ask ourselves, “Did God violate the
laws of physics in order for Jesus to physically stand in that room with the
disciples?” Did God somehow beam Jesus
into the room like some Star Trek episode?
How did a physically solid Jesus get into a room without using a door or
window? There is really only one
possibility. The body Jesus shown to the
disciples was a body transformed; it was a gloriously risen body which, while
bearing the marks of his passion, was transformed into something while real and
substantial, not like anything physics has described. In short it is the essence of the Eucharist,
real but unexplainable except by faith.
If we believe that Jesus
walked with the disciples at Emmaus, if we believe that he came (twice) to the
disciples in the locked room and to Peter on the shore, we must believe that
his body is truly present in the Eucharist we share. To deny that relationship is to deny Christ
himself.
Pax
[1]
ALTRE
[2]
The picture used is “Christ Takes Leave of His Disciples” Artist and Date are
UNKNOWN
[3] The readings are taken from the New American Bible
with the exception of the Psalm and its response which were developed by the
International Committee for English in Liturgy (ICEL). This re-publication is
not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
[4]
The Navarre Bible, “Gospels and Acts”, Scepter Publishers, Princeton, NJ, ©
2002, pp.738
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