April 24, 2025
Thursday in the Octave of Easter
Lectionary: 264
Reading 1
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.”
Responsorial Psalm
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.
Sequence -- optional
Victimae paschali laudes
Christians, to the Paschal Victim
Offer your
thankful praises!
A Lamb the sheep redeems;
Christ, who
only is sinless,
Reconciles
sinners to the Father.
Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous:
The Prince
of life, who died, reigns immortal.
Speak, Mary, declaring
What you
saw, wayfaring.
“The tomb of Christ, who is living,
The glory of
Jesus’ resurrection;
bright angels attesting,
The shroud
and napkin resting.
Yes, Christ my hope is arisen;
to Galilee
he goes before you.”
Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining.
Have mercy,
victor King, ever reigning!
Amen.
Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us be glad and rejoice in it.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
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."
https://bible.usccb.org/daily-bible-reading
Commentary on Acts
3:11-26
Immediately after the dramatic cure of the beggar who was
“lame from birth” in the Temple, Peter takes the opportunity to address the
crowds which had gathered, to explain the meaning of what they have just
witnessed.
The scene takes place at “Solomon’s Portico”. This was a
porch along the inner side of the wall enclosing the outer court, with rows of
27-foot high stone columns and a roof of cedar. So it was a roofed
structure—somewhat similar to a Greek stoa. There was a common, but
mistaken, belief that it dated back to Solomon’s time.
The message that Peter now gives the amazed crowd gathering
around is similar to other addresses in the early Church and contains: 1) an
explanation of what is happening; 2) the gospel of Jesus Christ—his death,
resurrection and glorification; and 3) a call to repentance and change of life,
symbolised by baptism.
First, Peter makes clear that the healing that has just
taken place before their eyes is not by his own power or that of his companion,
John. They are not to be gaped at as having supernatural powers. What has been
done has been through the power of Jesus, who has been empowered by the God
they all believe in, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Jesus is the one his hearers “handed over” to Pilate. Here
again we have this ‘handing over’, a phrase which runs like a refrain through
the Gospel. And he whom they handed over was the “Holy and Righteous One”,
indicating Jesus’ special relationship to the Father and his sinlessness—in
stark contrast to the guilt of the murderous Barabbas.
Pilate was only too anxious to let Jesus go, being aware of
his innocence, but he gave in to the demands of the crowd and yielded to their
choice of a convicted murderer, Barabbas. To the crowd, Peter says:
…you killed the author of life…
While Barabbas had taken away life and was freed, Jesus—the
source of life—was condemned to death. The sequence of the Easter Sunday Mass
says:
Dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus.
Literally translated this means: “The Leader of life, having
died, reigns alive.”
Peter and his companions are witnesses that Jesus was raised
again. And it was in the name of this same Jesus that the poor beggar has been
restored to health and mobility.
God has “glorified his servant” by Jesus’ resurrection and
ascension. The word “servant” is reminiscent of the Songs of the Suffering
Servant in Isaiah (and which we read early in Holy Week), especially Isaiah
52:13—53:12. Jesus himself spoke of being a servant when he washed his
disciples’ feet and when he said that he had come to serve and not to be
served. All of this did not quite fit the image of the kind of Messiah the Jews
were expecting.
And it is by faith in this very Jesus that the poor beggar,
“lame from birth” and well known to the crowds who came regularly to the
Temple, has been “made strong”:
…faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect
health in the presence of all of you.
Peter excuses his hearers (as Jesus himself did), saying
they did not fully realise at the time what they were doing. Yet, the suffering
of the Christ had long been foretold by the prophets. The early Christians saw
the suffering and death of Jesus clearly indicated in Old Testament prophecies.
The Jews, however, did not expect a suffering and dying Messiah—quite the
opposite. They saw in Isaiah’s Servant Songs their own suffering as a people.
Now it is not too late for them to ‘repent’ (there is metanoia again),
that is, radically to change their ways and thus have their sin taken away. To
‘repent’ is not just to express sorrow; it involves re-establishing one’s close
relationship with God and submitting totally to his Way. The nearest English
equivalent is ‘con-version’, a ‘turning round’, which means, of course, a
‘turning towards’.
Jesus, after all, is the prophet who was foretold by Moses,
who, Peter tells the crowd, had said:
The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own
people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you.
This is a loose quotation from Deuteronomy (18:15). In fact,
at the time of Jesus, some Jews expected a unique prophet to come in fulfilment
of this text. So early Christianity applied this tradition and text to Jesus,
especially where Christian teaching seemed to diverge from traditional Judaism.
And indeed, says Peter, every prophet from Samuel down
predicted what is now taking place before their eyes. Samuel was one of the
earliest of the prophets and the one who anointed David, Jesus’ ancestor, as
king. So the Jews in his audience are the heirs of the prophets’ messages; they
are the heirs to the covenant first made way back with Abraham:
…and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth
gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice. (Gen
22:18)
It is time now for the people to acknowledge this sacred
covenant, made new through Jesus Christ, and they will do that by their
accepting Jesus as their Saviour and abandoning their sinful ways to walk the
Way of Jesus. Exactly the same applies to us.
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Commentary on Luke
24:35-48
We pick up from yesterday’s story of the disciples going to
Emmaus. Back in Jerusalem they share their experience of the risen Jesus with
their comrades who have also heard that Jesus has appeared to Simon Peter.
Suddenly, Jesus himself appears in their midst. The fact
that he comes suddenly, although the doors were locked, indicates that his
presence is now of a different kind.
He wishes them peace. It is the ordinary Jewish greeting
of Shalom, but one which has special meaning in this Easter
context. Before his Passion Jesus had told his disciples,
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not
give to you as the world gives. (John 14:27)
The peace of the Risen Jesus is fully a Messianic blessing.
In spite of what they had heard, they are terrified and
think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus asks them:
Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your
hearts?
He shows them his pierced hands and feet. The Greeks mocked
the idea of bodily resurrection, but Luke emphasises the physical reality of Christ’s
risen body, that is, the wholeness of the person of the risen Jesus.
He invites them to come and touch him. Ghosts do not have
flesh and bones. As he shows them the wounds in his hands and feet, their fear
turns to a mixture of joy and utter astonishment. They can’t believe their
eyes. Jesus has to ask them to give him something to eat. Ghosts don’t eat and
Jesus is no ghost; he is no disembodied soul. There is also an emphasis that
death is not an ‘escape’ from the body, but that the whole person goes into the
next life.
Jesus then goes on to explain, as he did with the Emmaus
disciples, how all that had happened to him was fully in harmony with, and the
fulfilment of, the Law, the prophets and psalms. Mentioning the three
constituent parts of the Old Testament, Jesus indicates that the Messiah was
foretold through the whole of the Hebrew scriptures.
And out of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection comes
the mission to proclaim reconciliation with God through Jesus to the whole
word. Jesus tells them:
You are witnesses of these things.
It is their mission to carry on the establishment of the
Kingdom throughout the world. Or, as it is put here:
…that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be
proclaimed in [the Messiah’s] name to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem.
The Kingdom is being realised when people go through that
process of radical conversion and change of life (i.e. ‘repentance’—metanoia)
which brings about a deep reconciliation of each one with God, with all those
around them, and with themselves—when all divisions fall away, when fear and
hostility are replaced with a caring love for each other.
If we have not yet done so, let us become part of that great
enterprise today.
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Thursday,
April 24, 2025
Thursday within the Octave of Easter
Opening prayer
Almighty God and Father,
Jesus died for us on the
cross and you raised him from the dead. We have not seen the marks of the nails
in his hands nor touched the wound in his side, but we believe that he is alive
and present here among us.
Open our hearts to
his word and let us touch him in the bread of the eucharist, that he may raise
us above our sins and change us into new people. May we thus bear witness to
your risen Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Gospel Reading - Luke 24: 35-48
Then they told their story of what
had happened on the road and how they had recognized him at the breaking of
bread.
They were still talking
about all this when he himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be
with you!' In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a
ghost. But he said, 'Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts stirring
in your hearts? See by my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and
see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.' And
as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. Their joy was so great
that they still could not believe it, as they were dumbfounded; so, he said to
them, 'Have you anything here to eat?' And they offered him a piece of grilled
fish, which he took and ate before their eyes. Then he told them, 'This is what
I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about
me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the
Psalms, was destined to be fulfilled.'
He then opened their minds
to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, 'So it is written that the
Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his
name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations,
beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.
Reflection
In these days after Easter, the texts of the Gospel narrate
the apparitions of
Jesus. At the beginning, in
the first years after the death and the Resurrection of Jesus, the Christians
were concerned in defending the Resurrection through the apparitions. They
themselves, the living community, were a great apparition of the Risen Jesus.
But in the measure in which the criticism of the enemies against the faith in
the Resurrection increased, and that internally, there arose criticism and
doubts concerning diverse functions in the community (cf. 1 Co 1: 12), they
began to recall the apparitions of Jesus. There are two types of
apparitions:
(a)
those which stress the doubts and the resistance
of the disciples in believing in the Resurrection, and
(b)
those who call the attention toward the orders
of Jesus to the disciples – men and women – conferring some mission to
them.
The first respond to the
criticism which come from outside. These show that Christians are not naïve and
credulous persons who accept everything and anything, rather all the contrary.
They themselves had many doubts in believing in the Resurrection. The others
respond to the criticism from within and found the community functions and
tasks, not on human qualities which are always debatable, but on the authority
and orders received from the Risen Jesus. The apparitions of Jesus in today’s
Gospel put together two different aspects: the doubts of the disciples and the
mission to announce and to forgive received from Jesus.
•
Luke 24: 35: The summary of the story of Emmaus.
Returning to Jerusalem, the two disciples found the community together and they
shared with them the experience that they had lived. They told them what had
happened along the road and how they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the
bread. The community gathered together, in turn, shared the apparition of Jesus
to Peter. This was a reciprocal sharing of the experience of the Resurrection,
as it also happens today when the communities gather together to share and
celebrate their faith, their hope and their love.
•
Luke 24, 36-37: The apparition of Jesus causes
great fright in the disciples. At this moment, Jesus becomes present among them
and says: “Peace be with you!” This is the most frequent greeting of Jesus:
“Peace be with you!” (Jn 14: 27; 16: 33; 20: 19, 21, 26). But the disciples in
seeing Jesus were frightened and did not recognize him. Before them is Jesus in
person, but they think that they are seeing a ghost, a phantasm. They cannot
believe it. It is not the encounter between Jesus of Nazareth and the Risen
Jesus.
•
Luke 24, 38-40: Jesus helps them to overcome
fear and unbelief. Jesus does two things to help the disciples overcome the
fear and the unbelief. He shows them his hands and his feet, saying: “It is I
myself!” and tells them to touch his body saying: “A ghost has no flesh and
bones as you can see, I have!” Jesus shows his hands and feet because in them
is the sign of the nails (cf. Jn 20, 25-27). The Risen Christ is Jesus of
Nazareth, the same one who was nailed on the Cross and not a phantasm Christ as
the disciples imagined, when they saw him. He orders them to touch his body,
because the Resurrection is the Resurrection of the whole person, body and
soul. The Resurrection has nothing to do with the theory of the immortality of
the soul, which the Greeks taught.
•
Luke 24: 41-43: The other gesture to help them
overcome unbelief. But it does not suffice! Luke said that they could not
believe because their joy was so great that they became dumbfounded. Jesus asks
them to give him something to eat. They offered him some fish and he eats
before them, to help them to overcome the doubt.
•
Luke 24: 44-47: A key for the reading to
understand the new significance of the Scripture. One of the greatest
difficulties of the first Christians was that of accepting the crucified as the
promised Messiah, because the Law taught that a crucified person was a “person
cursed by God” (Dt 21: 22-23). For this reason, it was important to know that
Scripture had already announced that “Christ had to suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day and that in his name, conversion and forgiveness of sins
would be preached to all peoples.” Jesus shows them that which had already been
written in the Law of Moses, in the prophets and in the Psalms. Jesus risen
from the dead, alive in their midst, becomes the key to open to them the total
significance of Sacred Scripture.
•
Luke 24: 48: You are witnesses of this. In this
last order is enclosed the whole mission of the Christian communities: to be
witnesses of the Resurrection, in such a way that the love of God which accepts
us and forgives us will be manifested, and which wants us to live in community
as sons and daughters, brothers and sisters with one another.
Personal Questions
•
Sometimes, unbelief and doubt set in the heart
and weaken the certainty that faith gives us concerning the presence of God in
our life. Have you ever lived this sometimes? How have you overcome it?
•
Our mission and also my mission, is that of
being a witness of the love of God revealed in Jesus. Am I a witness of this
love?
Concluding Prayer
What are human beings that you spare a thought for them, or
the child of Adam that you care for him? (Ps 8: 4)
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