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
Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11
R. (11a) Lord,
you will show us the path of life.
or:
R. Alleluia.
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.
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I bless the LORD who counsels me;
even in the night my heart exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in confidence;
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life.
or:
R. Alleluia.
You will show me the path to life,
abounding joy in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever.
R. Lord, you will show us the path of life.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading
2
1 Peter 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
Cf. Luke 24:32
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us;
make our hearts burn while you speak to us.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Luke 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.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041926.cfm
Commentary on Acts
2:14,22-33; 1 Peter 1:17-21
We continue reading from the Acts of the Apostles, and
through Pentecost, all weekday and Sunday First Readings will be from Acts.
Today’s reading follows immediately on the account of the
Pentecost experience. The result of that experience is Peter, now filled with
the Spirit and as leader of the new community, begins proclaiming the message
about Jesus Christ as Saviour to the people gathered in Jerusalem for the
Jewish festival of Pentecost.
It is the first of six such kerygmas (from
the Greek kerux, meaning a ‘herald’) or proclamations in Acts about
Jesus as Risen Lord and Messiah-King. Five of them are attributed to Peter and
the final one to Paul (to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, Acts 13:16-41).
Peter’s address follows a pattern that became common in the early Church:
- an
explanation of what was happening;
- the
proclamation of the death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus the
Christ;
- an
exhortation to repentance, a change of life and baptism.
Peter stood before the crowd, flanked by the Eleven
(including Matthias, newly chosen to replace Judas as a witness who had been
with Jesus “during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us”).
Peter spoke, then, not just in his own name, but in the name of the whole
apostolic ‘college’. Right from the beginning, his special position in the
group is recognised.
And he has ‘good news’ (i.e. gospel, Old
English god-spell; Greek, euanggelion) to communicate
to them. His words reflect the content of the earliest apostolic preaching.
First, he gives witness of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his
being raised to glory.
Second, there are some general details of Christ’s ministry
and how it was proclaimed in advance by John the Baptist, inaugurated by teaching
and miracles, completed by appearances of the Risen Christ and the giving of
the Spirit to his followers.
And third, the story of Jesus is put in the wider context of
the Old Testament prophecies, while at the same time looking forward to a
Messianic age. Everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, is called to a radical change
of life in order to be ready for the Christ’s glorious return (believed then to
be in the near future).
Peter, then, reminds them that Jesus had appeared among the
people—as many of his hearers were well aware—and performed signs and wonders
as the credentials of his real identity. But in the inscrutable plan of God, he
was “handed over” (again we have that term which goes like a refrain through
the New Testament).
Sad to say, those who handed Jesus over were from among his
own people, perhaps including some of those listening to Peter, and they had
even delivered him into the hands of the Romans (“those outside the law”) for
crucifixion. There must surely have been some uneasy feelings among the crowd
when he said that.
But Jesus was liberated from the pain of death, as death had
no power over him. Peter sees in words spoken by King David their fulfilment in
Jesus, his descendant. He then paraphrases the words spoken of David in Psalm
16:10):
He was not abandoned to Hades [the place of the
dead],
nor did his flesh experience corruption.
He sees these words as applying more appropriately to Jesus
because David died, was buried and the place of his tomb was known to his
hearers. But Jesus did not experience the corruption of death. Instead:
This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are
witnesses.
Today’s Second Reading acknowledges that by his death and
resurrection, Jesus died that we might be saved. Peter says:
You know that you were ransomed from the futile conduct
inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold
but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or
blemish.
We, too, are called to be witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection
and his living presence among us by the way we live both individually and as a
community.
Comments Off
Commentary on Luke
24:13-35
Today’s Gospel is one of the great passages of the New
Testament. It encapsulates, in a little over 20 verses, the whole Christian
life. It is still Easter Sunday as the passage opens. In Luke, all the
resurrection appearances take place in the vicinity of Jerusalem and on Easter
Sunday.
It begins with two disciples on the road leaving Jerusalem.
For Luke, the focal point of Jesus’ mission is Jerusalem. It was the goal to
which all Jesus’ public life was headed, and from there the new community would
bring his Message to the rest of the world.
They are on their way to a place called Emmaus, about 7
miles (11 km) from Jerusalem. Although the exact location is not now known, it
does not really matter—and that is the point. They were on the ‘road’—they are
pilgrims on the road of life. Jesus is the Way, the Road. The problem is that
at this moment, they are going in the wrong direction.
The Risen Jesus joins them as a fellow traveller:
…but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
Why was that? Was it their presumption that he was dead? Was
it their pre-conceived idea of what Jesus should look like?
Seeing their obvious despondency and disillusionment, Jesus
asks what they are talking about. With deliciously unconscious irony they say,
Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know
the things that have taken place there in these days?
Jesus plays them out a little more with a totally
innocent-sounding, “What things?” He wants to hear their version of what
happened. To them, the death was the failure of Jesus’ mission. They refer to
him as a “prophet” as if, after the debacle of his death, they could not see in
Jesus, the Messiah they had earlier acknowledged.
…we had hoped [Greek, elpizomen, sperabamus] that
he was the one to redeem Israel.
Again, the delicious irony of their own words is lost on
them. To them, “redeem Israel” meant liberation from the tyranny of foreign
domination, and perhaps the inauguration of the Kingdom of God as they
understood it.
They are puzzled also by the stories of the women describing
an empty tomb and angels—but there is still no sign of Jesus. More irony—they
are addressing these very words to Jesus!
Jesus then gives them a lesson in reading the Scriptures,
and shows them that all that happened to him—including his suffering and
death—far from being a tragedy, was all foreordained. Luke is the only writer
to speak clearly of a suffering Messiah. The idea of a suffering Messiah is not
found as such in the Old Testament. Later, the Church will see a foreshadowing
of the suffering Messiah in the texts on the Suffering Servant in Isaiah.
This story emphasises that all that happened to Jesus was
the fulfilment of Old Testament promises and of Jewish hopes. All through Acts,
Luke will argue that Christianity is the fulfilment of the hopes of Pharisaic
Judaism and its logical development. In many respects, Matthew’s Gospel has a
similar theme.
As they reach their destination, Jesus makes as if to
continue his journey. However, they extend their hospitality to the stranger.
They say:
Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is
now nearly over.
This echoes in Matthew’s Gospel:
…I was a stranger and you welcomed me… (Matt
25:35)
So Jesus goes in to stay with them—wonderful words. But it
would not have happened if they had not opened their home to him.
As they sat down to the meal, Jesus, the visitor
unexpectedly acting as host, took the bread, said the blessing over it, broke
it and gave it to them. And in that very act, they recognised him. This is the
Eucharist, where we recognise the presence of Jesus among us in the breaking of
bread. Not just in the bread, but in the breaking and sharing of the bread, and
in those who share the broken bread.
Then Jesus disappears, but they are still basking in the
afterglow.
Were not our hearts burning within us while he was
talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?
In the light of these experiences, they turn around
(conversion!) and go back along the road to Jerusalem from which they had been
fleeing. There they discover their fellow-disciples, excited that the Lord is
risen and has appeared to Simon. And they tell their marvellous story and:
…how he had been made known to them in the breaking of
the bread.
All the ingredients of the Christian life are here:
- Running
away from where Christ is to be found—we do it all the time.
- Meeting
Jesus in the unexpected place, or person, or situation. How many times
does this happen and we do not recognise him, or worse, mistreat him?
- Finding
the real meaning and identity of Jesus and his mission in having the
Scriptures fully explained. Without the Scriptures we cannot claim to know
Jesus. Yet, how many Catholics go through life hardly ever opening a
Bible?
- Recognising
Jesus in the breaking of bread, in our celebration of the Eucharist. The
breaking and sharing of the bread indicates the essential community
dimension of that celebration, making it a real ‘comm-union’ with all
present.
- Responding
to the central experience of Scripture and Liturgy by participating in the
work of proclaiming the message of Christ and sharing our experience of it
with others, that they may also share it.
- Recognizing
the importance of hospitality and kindness to the stranger. “I was hungry…
and you did/did not feed me…” Jesus is especially present and to be found
and loved in the very least of my brothers and sisters.
The scene is also a model of the Mass:
Those walking together on the Road gather together and meet
Jesus. First, they meet him in the Liturgy of the Word as the Scriptures are
broken open and explained. Second, he is present in the Liturgy of the
Eucharist, where what Jesus did for us through his suffering, death and
resurrection is remembered with thanksgiving. The bread that is now his Body,
and the wine that is now his Blood, are shared among those who are the Members
of that Body to strengthen their union and their commitment to continuing the
work of Jesus.
Comments Off
https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/ea031g/
Sunday, April 19, 2026
Third Sunday of Easter
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus, send Your Spirit to help us to read the Scriptures with the same mind
that You read them to the disciples
on the way to Emmaus.
In the light of the Word, written
in the Bible, You helped them to discover the presence of God in the disturbing
events of Your sentence
and death. Thus,
the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became
for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create silence
in us so that we may listen
to Your voice
in Creation and in the Scriptures, in events and in people,
above all in the poor and suffering. May Your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples on the way to Emmaus,
may experience the force of Your resurrection and witness to others that
You are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice
and peace. We ask this of You, Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed
the Father to us and sent us Your Spirit.
Amen.
Gospel Reading – Luke 24: 13-35
A Key to Guide the Reading:
Let us read the text where Luke presents
Jesus as interpreting the Scriptures. As we read, let us seek to discover
the various steps taken by Jesus in the process of this interpretation, from the
moment He meets the two disciples on the way
to Emmaus, to the time the disciples meet with the community in Jerusalem.
A Division
of the Text to Assist a Careful Reading:
•
Lk 24: 13-24:
Jesus tries to find out what it is that
is making the two disciples distressed.
•
Lk 24: 25-27: Jesus sheds the light of Scripture on
the situation of the two disciples.
•
Lk 24: 28-32: Jesus shares the bread and celebrates with the disciples.
•
Lk 24: 33-35:
The two disciples go to Jerusalem and share their
experience of the
resurrection with the community.
The Text:
13-24: Now that very same day, two of them were on their way to a village called
Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking together
about all that had happened.
And it happened that as they were talking together and discussing it, Jesus Himself
came up and walked by their side; but their
eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. He said to them, 'What are all these things that you are discussing
as you walk along?' They stopped,
their faces downcast. Then one of them, called
Cleopas, answered Him, 'You must be the only person staying in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have been happening there these last few days.'
He asked, 'What things?' They answered,
'All about Jesus of Nazareth, who showed Himself a prophet powerful in action
and speech before God and the whole people; and how our chief priests and our leaders
handed Him over to be sentenced to death, and had Him crucified.
Our own hope had been that He would be the one to set Israel free.
And this is not
all: two whole days have now gone by since it all happened; and some
women from our group have astounded us: they went to the tomb in the early
morning, and when they could not find the body, they came back to tell us they
had seen a vision of angels who declared He was alive.
Some of our friends went to the tomb and found everything
exactly as the women had reported, but of Him they saw nothing.'
25-27: Then He said to them, 'You foolish men! So slow to believe all that the prophets have
said! Was it not necessary
that the Christ
should suffer before entering into His glory?'
Then, starting with Moses and going through
all the prophets, He explained to them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about Himself.
28-32: When they drew near to the village to which they were going,
He made as if to go on; but they pressed
Him to stay with them
saying, 'It is nearly
evening, and the day is almost over.'
So He went in to stay with
them. Now while He
was with them at table, He took the bread and said the blessing; then He broke it and handed
it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; but
He had vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, 'Did not our hearts
burn within us as He talked to us on the road and
explained the scriptures to us?'
33-35: They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven
assembled together with their companions, 34 who said to them, 'The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon.' 35 Then they told their story
of what had happened on the way and how they had recognized Him at the breaking
of bread.
A Moment of Prayerful Silence
so that the Word of God may enter into us and enlighten our life.
Some Questions
to help us in our personal
reflection.
•
What part did you like best in this text? Why?
•
What steps did Jesus take in interpreting the Scriptures from
the time He met
the two friends on the road up to the time
the disciples went to the community in Jerusalem?
•
In what type of situation
does Jesus meet the two disciples?
•
What are the similarities and the differences between
our present situation and that of the two disciples? What factors create a crisis of faith in our day
and are the cause of sadness?
•
What was the effect of Jesus’ reading of the Bible on
the life of the two disciples?
•
Which points in the interpretation made by Jesus
are a critique of our way of reading the Bible, and which are a
confirmation?
A Key
to the Reading
for those who wish to go deeper into the text.
The Context in Which Luke is Writing:
•
Luke is
writing in about the year 85 for the Greek community of Asia Minor, who were
living in difficult circumstances, due to factors both external and internal. Internally, there were divergent
tendencies that made life together difficult: ex-Pharisees who
wanted to impose the law of Moses (Acts 15:
1); those who followed John the Baptist more and who had not even heard
of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19: 1-6); Jews who used the name of Jesus to drive out demons (Acts 19: 13); and those who said they were followers of Peter, others
of Paul, others of Apollo, and
others of Christ (1Cor 1:12). Externally,
persecution by the Roma Empire
was growing (Rev 1: 9-10; 2: 3, 10,
13; 6: 9-10; 12: 16) plus the insidious infiltration of the dominant
ideology of the Empire and of the official
religion, much the same way communism today infiltrates all aspects
of our life
(Rev 2: 14, 20; 13: 14-16).
•
Luke is writing
to these communities that he may give them a sure direction
in the midst of their difficulties and so that they may find the strength and
light in living out their faith in Jesus. Luke writes a two volume work: the Gospel and Acts, and he has the same general
aim, "to learn how well founded
the teaching is that you
have received" (Lk
1: 4). One
of his specific
aims is to show,
through the beautiful story of the two disciples
on the way to Emmaus, how the community ought to read
and interpret the Bible. In reality, those walking the streets of Emmaus were the communities (and all of us). Each of
us is and all of us together
are companions of Cleophas (Lk 24: 18). With him we
walk the streets of life, seeking a word of
support and of guidance
in the Word of God.
•
The way Luke narrates the meeting of Jesus with the disciples on the way to
Emmaus, tells us how the communities of his time used the Bible and practiced what we today call Lectio Divina or Prayerful Reading
of the Bible. They used three steps
in interpreting the Bible:
The Steps or Aspects Used in the Process of Interpreting
the Scriptures:
•
First step: Start from facts (Lk 24: 13-24):
Jesus meets the two friends who are experiencing
feelings of fear and dispersion, of lack of trust
and dismay. They were fleeing.
The force of death,
the cross, had killed in them all hope. Jesus approaches them and walks with
them. He listens to their conversation and
says: "What matters are you discussing as you walk along?" The
prevailing ideology prevents
them from understanding and having
a critical conscience.
"Our
own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free, but…" (Lk 24: 21). What do those who suffer talk about today? What matters
today put our faith in a state
of crisis?
The first step is this: to approach
people, listen to reality, problems; be capable
of asking questions that help to look at reality more critically.
•
Second step: Make use of the Bible
(Lk 24: 25-27)
Jesus uses the Bible, not in order to give lessons
on the Bible, but to shed light on the problem worrying
the two friends,
and thus shed light on the situation they were experiencing. With
the help of the Bible, Jesus leads the two disciples into God’s plan and shows them that God has not allowed
history to go astray.
Jesus does not use the Bible as an expert who knows everything,
but as a companion who wishes to help his friends to remember things
they had forgotten, namely, Moses and the Prophets. Jesus does not give
his friends the feeling of being ignorant, but seeks to create an ambient
within which they can remember and thus arouse their memory.
The second step is this: with the help
of the Bible, to shed light on the situation and transform the cross, symbol of death, into a symbol of life and of hope. In this manner,
that which prevents
us from seeing,
becomes light and strength along our way.
•
Third step: Celebrating and sharing in community (Lk 24: 28-32)
The Bible
alone does not
open their eyes
but makes their
hearts burn! (Lk 24:
32). What opens the eyes of the friends and allows them to discover the presence of Jesus is the sharing
of the bread,
the communitarian gesture, the celebration. As soon as they recognize Jesus, He
disappears. And they then experience the resurrection; they are reborn and walk
on their own. Jesus does not take over His friends’ journey.
He is not paternalistic. Now that they are
risen, the disciples
can walk on their own two
feet.
The third step is this: we must know how to create a prayerful
and fraternal
atmosphere
where the Spirit is free to act. It is the Spirit who allows us to discover and
experience the Word of God in our lives and leads us to understand the meaning of Jesus’ words (Jn 14: 26; 16: 13). It is especially at this point of the celebration that the practice of basic
ecclesial communities, sustained by the margins of the world, help us religious
once more to come across and drink from the ancient well of Tradition.
•
Aim: To rise and go towards Jerusalem (Lk 24: 33-35)
Everything has
changed in the two disciples. They themselves rise, regain courage and go back
to Jerusalem, where
the forces of death that killed Jesus are still at work, but where also there are the forces of life in the sharing of the experience of the resurrection. Courage in place of fear.
Return in place of flight. Faith in place of its absence. Hope in place of
despair. A critical conscience in place of fatalism
before power. Freedom
in place of oppression.
In
a word, life in place of death! And in place of the news of the death of Jesus,
the Good News of his Resurrection!
This is the aim of reading
the Bible: to experience the presence of Jesus and of His Spirit in our midst. It is the Spirit who opens our eyes to the Bible and to reality and draws us to share the experience of the Resurrection, as it is true
even to this day, in community meetings.
The New Way of Jesus: A Prayerful Reading of the Bible:
•
* Often, it is not possible to understand whether the
use of the OT in the Gospels comes from Jesus or an explanation given by early
Christians who sought to express
their faith in Jesus in this
way. However, what cannot be denied is the frequent and constant use of the
Bible by Jesus. A simple reading of the Gospels shows us that Jesus found His
bearings in the Scriptures in the performance of His mission and in instructing
His disciples and the crowd.
•
At the root of Jesus’ reading of the Bible is his experience of God as
Father. His intimate relationship with the Father gives Jesus a new criterion,
which places Him in direct contact with the author of the Bible. Jesus looks
for meaning at the very source. He does not go from the writings to their root,
but from the root to the writings. The comparison of the photo,
as described in the Lectio Divina
of Easter Sunday,
helps us to shed light
on this topic.
As by a miracle, the photo of the harsh face was lit up and acquired traits of great tenderness. The words, born of the lived experience of the son, transformed
everything, without changing
anything (see Lectio
Divina for Easter
Sunday).
•
Thus, looking through
the photos of the Old Testament, people in the time of Jesus,
formed an idea of a very distant
God, harsh, difficult to contact, whose name could not even be mouthed. But Jesus’ words and actions,
born of His experience as Son, without changing even one word (Mt 5:18-19), transformed
the whole meaning of the Old Testament. The God who seemed to be so
distant and harsh acquires the features of a Father
full of tenderness, always present, ready to welcome and liberate! This Good News of God,
communicated by Jesus, is the new key to a re-reading of the whole of the
Old Testament. The New Testament is a re-reading of the Old Testament done in
the light of the new experience of God, revealed by Jesus. This different way of shedding
light on life in the light of the Word of God, creates
many
conflicts for Him, because it renders the small of this world critical, while it
makes the great uncomfortable.
•
When interpreting
the Bible to the people,
Jesus revealed the traits of God’s
face, the experience that He experienced of God as Father. To reveal God as
Father was the source and aim of the Good News of Jesus. By His attitude, Jesus
manifests God’s love for His disciples. He reveals the Father and incarnates His love! Jesus
was able to say, "To
have seen Me is to have seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). Hence, the Father’s Spirit was also with Jesus (Lk 4: 18) and
went with Him everywhere, from the incarnation (Lk 1: 35) to the beginning of his mission (Lk 4: 14), even to the end, his death and resurrection
(Acts 1: 8).
•
Jesus, interpreter, educator
and master, was a meaningful person in the life
of His disciples. He influenced their lives forever.
To interpret the Bible does not
mean just to teach truth for the other to live by.
The content that Jesus wished to convey was not limited to words but included actions and His way of relating
to people. The content is never separate
from the person
who communicates it. The
goodness and love
that emerge from
His words are part
of the content.
They are His nature. Good
content without goodness
is like spilt milk.
Psalm 23 (22)
God is Our Inheritance Forever, the Lord is my Shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me lie
down in green
pastures. He leads me beside
still waters; He restores my
soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil;
for Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table
before me in the presence
of my enemies; Thou anoint
my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy
shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Final Prayer
Lord Jesus, we thank You for the word that has enabled us to understand better the will of the Father. May Your Spirit
enlighten our actions
and grant us the
strength to practice what Your Word has revealed to us. May we, like Mary, Your
