My Homily for 3rd Sunday of Easter [UPDATED with video]

I celebrated Sunday Mass for the intentions of the people of St. Peter and St. Mary today as usual. Here is my homily (YouTube video).

The written notes follow.  (Scroll down to bottom for today's Scripture readings).

Third Sunday of Easter -- April 26, 2020

Just a few months after I was ordained a priest in 2004, Pope St. John Paul II, one of my heroes and favorite saints, wrote a beautiful short apostolic letter called Stay With Us, Lord (“Mane nobiscum, Domine) a beautiful reflection on the Holy Eucharist based on the Gospel we just heard proclaimed today, which contains that title lie – when Jesus’ disciples on the road to Emmaus beg Him not to leave them as He walks the road with them.  It is well worth a read and I would love to do a brief study on it in my parishes once we are allowed to reopen again.

It’s a fascinating Gospel.  In the drama, we can see the disciples vacillating between doubt and faith, hope and despair, knowing the real Jesus and barely knowing Jesus.  Through St. Luke’s narrative, we see the “bird’s eye view.”  We see what the disciples can’t yet see:   Jesus, deliberately disguising His Resurrected glory, conversing with them.  They are downcast, discouraged, depressed.  It is clear from their conversation that they don’t yet recognize Jesus as the Son of God.  They’d been hoping for the wrong things like merely freeing them from the oppression of the Romans, rather than their sins.  They had witnessed his mighty deeds, thought he was a great man.  But not the One Who would conquer sin and death and the Hope for the World.  Or perhaps they believe and hope this is true, but can’t yet convince themselves of it.  Perhaps they are starting to believe but don’t yet dare to speak that hope out loud.

There are hints that even in their discouragement, they are still open to believe in something greater than a Jesus defeated by death.  They remembered that there was supposed to be something significant about the “third day.”  They even mention, skeptical as they might be, that some women of their group claimed to see angels announcing that this Jesus of Nazareth is alive after they saw an empty tomb.  They know that there is something special about this walking companion, something magnetically attractive.  So much so that they beg Him to stay with them, as the darkness sets in, “Stay with us, Sir!”  Mane nobiscum, Domine!

So the big question is: What changed?  What pushed them over the edge?  Nudged them over the line from fear to courage, from doubt to faith, from despair to hope?  St. Luke puts it quite plainly and simply, in just a few words:  “With that, their eyes were opened.  And they recognized Him [in the breaking of the Bread] – before He vanished from their sight.”

You don’t have to be a crack Bible scholar to recognize that St. Luke is drafting a blueprint for what happens at the holy Mass.  That it is the Lord’s will that in the celebration of the Eucharist – the sacred meal which makes present the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross and His victory over the grave – that our eyes too can be opened to the reality of Jesus Christ Our Lord and Our Savior.  That we too might be moved from doubt to faith; from despair to hope.

The celebration of the holy Sacrifice of the Mass – not only here at Emmaus but at every parish church everywhere around the globe – has a divine power that we take far, far too lightly.  That – perhaps until now in this era of temporary suspension of public Masses – we have taken far, far too much for granted.

To those whose hearts are open, who are willing to surrender their hearts completely to Christ, we can see that the breaking of the bread at Holy Mass Mass changes everything.  The presence of Christ is our all.

Pope St. John Paul puts it this way: “When minds are enlightened and hearts are enkindled, [then] signs begin to speak.”  What does he mean by this?  We remember the words the disciples said when Jesus Himself explained how absolutely everything in the Holy Bible pointed to Him.  They had only the Old Testament – the Law and the prophets.  But we have the whole of the Bible: Old and New.  From Genesis to Revelation.  So how much more true should that be for us.  That every line of Scripture reveals Him, foreshadows Him.  The beauty of God’s saving plan in Christ leaps out from every page.  We hear the words of these early disciples “Were not our hearts burning within us when He opened the Scriptures to us.”  We should echo that every time the Holy Scriptures are proclaimed.  There, it is Christ Himself speaking, revealing His commandments and His love.  Sure, we can – and should – read and pray the Bible at Home.  We might even benefit if we can’t go to Mass from watching Scriptures proclaimed on video.  But at Mass, Christ Himself is heard in the Scriptures.

But as beautiful as that proclamation is, it leads to something greater.  The Scriptures help us to prepare our hearts for the climax of what happens at the holy altar where, out of an undying love for us,  the Lord grants us the inestimable privilege of entering into Communion with Him, in His sacred Body and Blood.  Where Jesus gives us more than we could possibly imagine.

Again, St. John Paul II:  “The disciples on the way to Emmaus asked Jesus to stay with them.  He responded by giving a greater gift.  Through the sacrament of the Eucharist, He found a way to stay in them  … This relationship of profound and mutual abiding enables us to have a certain foretaste of heaven on earth.  Is this not the greatest of human yearnings? … God has placed in human hearts a “hunger” for his word, a hunger which will be satisfied only by full union with Him.  Eucharistic communion was given so that we might be ‘sated’ [satisfied] with God here on earth, in expectation of our complete fulfillment in Heaven.”

In these very difficult times of great suffering due to the world-wide epidemic of the Wuhan flu and suspension of public Masses, as painful as that is, I believe that God is giving us a time of reflection and deepening of our faith.  A time to pray over the question, “Are our hearts really burning with love for Jesus in the Eucharist?”  Is being in Communion with Jesus the purpose, the goal, the center of my life?

I think there is reason for great hope here.  In these past few several difficult weeks, I have witnessed among my parishioners that real hunger.  Many coming for adoration, willing to kneel outside the Church, on the ground, just to be near Jesus, even though they temporarily can’t receive Him in Holy Communion.  And many other signs.

St. John Paul II again: “the presence of Jesus in the tabernacle must be a kind of magnetic pole attracting an ever greater number of souls enamored of Him, ready to wait patiently to hear His voice and … to sense the beating of His Heart: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good!’”

When we pull out of this terrible epidemic, that should be our prayer, through the intercession of St. John Paul: not just that we can satisfy that longing to taste and see the Lord for ourselves, but that – like these disciples on the road to Emmaus, we might, by our witness, draw many other souls to that magnetic pole of the holy Mass, which unites us not only with the Lord but with each other, so that the whole people of God can “taste and see” just how truly good is Jesus, the Son of God, Our Lord and Savior, crucified and Risen, to save us from our sins.

Third Sunday of Easter
Lectionary: 46

Reading 1 Acts 2:14, 22-33

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven,
raised his voice, and proclaimed:
“You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem.
Let this be known to you, and listen to my words.
You who are Israelites, hear these words.
Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God
with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs,
which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.
This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God,
you killed, using lawless men to crucify him.
But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death,
because it was impossible for him to be held by it.
For David says of him:
I saw the Lord ever before me,
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
Therefore my heart has been glad and my tongue has exulted;
my flesh, too, will dwell in hope,
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.
“My brothers, one can confidently say to you
about the patriarch David that he died and was buried,
and his tomb is in our midst to this day.
But since he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn an oath to him
that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne,
he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ,
that neither was he abandoned to the netherworld
nor did his flesh see corruption.
God raised this Jesus;
of this we are all witnesses.
Exalted at the right hand of God,
he received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father
and poured him forth, as you see and hear.”

Responsorial Psalm Ps 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11

R. (11a) Lord, you will show us the path of life.
Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge; I say to the LORD, “My Lord are you.”
O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup, you it is who hold fast my lot. …

Reading 2 1 Pt 1:17-21

Beloved:
If you invoke as Father him who judges impartially
according to each one’s works,
conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning,
realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct,
handed on by your ancestors,
not with perishable things like silver or gold
but with the precious blood of Christ
as of a spotless unblemished lamb.
He was known before the foundation of the world
but revealed in the final time for you,
who through him believe in God
who raised him from the dead and gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are in God.

Alleluia Lk 24:32

Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us;
make our hearts burn while you speak to us.

Gospel Lk 24:13-35

That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them,
“What are you discussing as you walk along?”
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,
“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in these days?”
And he replied to them, “What sort of things?”
They said to him,
“The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over
to a sentence of death and crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels
who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb
and found things just as the women had described,
but him they did not see.”
And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, “Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered together
the eleven and those with them who were saying,
“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”
Then the two recounted
what had taken place on the way
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.