Catholic Preaching

Witnesses of the Risen One, Easter Thursday, April 4, 2024


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Fr. Roger J. Landry

Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Easter Thursday
April 4, 2024
Acts 3:11-26, Ps 8, Lk 24:35-48

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.4.24_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

  • At Easter, Jesus wants to work a transformation in us like he worked in the first disciples. And as we’ve been seeing during these days, there’s a very familiar pattern to the metamorphosis he worked on Easter that we’ve been seeing in each of the Gospels this Easter week:
    • At first the disciples who encounter Jesus are bewildered, shocked, fearful, unbelieving in his resurrection; no matter how many times Jesus had told them exactly what would occur to him, they still didn’t believe, even when they saw him a couple of days after his brutal execution.
    • The second stage is that Jesus convinces them that he’s real, that he’s alive, that he’s risen from the dead and he begins to instruct and show them that everything that happened to him was supposed to happen to him.
    • Third, once they hear and see Jesus, they come to faith in Him, his Resurrection and his living Presence in front of them.
    • Lastly, Jesus sends them out on a mission to complete his own divine mission.
    • On Monday and Tuesday we see how this happened with St. Mary Magdalene from the perspectives of St. Matthew’s and St. John’s Gospels respectively. Yesterday we saw it with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus. And in today’s Gospel, we see these same four stages occur with the apostles in the Upper Room.
    • Jesus enters the other room while Cleopas and the other disciple are briefing them on what just happened on their journey home to Emmaus. The disciples were “started and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost.” They couldn’t believe that it was Jesus, even after the witness of the Emmaus disciples, of Mary Magdalene and the other Mary whom Jesus met on the way. Just like the two disciples of Emmaus, their hearts were slow to believe: their will wasn’t yet in it, they were too dejected, too afraid. Jesus confronts those fears straight on. He says, “Peace be with you!,” and asks, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?” Note that like in Emmaus, the problem was not with their minds but their hearts. Then he removed their cardiac doubts about his physical reality by saying, “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.” After showing them his wounds and his feet — a witness not only to the continuity with his life prior to death but also a sign of their sins that caused the wounds — he proves that he’s not a ghost by eating a piece a baked fish, which only a real person with a real body could digest. Then he started to do for them what we saw him do with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus: he reminded them that he had to suffer, just as he and the prophets had foretold. “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.”
    • St. Luke stresses that, having opened their hearts, he then “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,” saying, “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.” Doubtless their own hearts began to burn like the hearts of the Emmaus disciples and their minds got that warmer blood of faith so that they began to believe. Finally, Jesus gave them their mission as he similarly opened their mouths: “You are witnesses of these things.” They were to be witnesses of Christ’s resurrection, but not only his resurrection. They were to testify to how Jesus fulfilled everything that was “written about [him] in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms,” that “the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead … and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.” They would testify to him as well as to the way we would share in the fruits of his victory.
    • We see St. Peter fulfilling that very mission in today’s first reading. As the crippled man they healed in yesterday’s Gospel was clinging to him, he started to explain the significance of the man’s healing to the assembled crowd in Solomon’s Portico in the Temple: this man was walking and healed not because of Peter or John, but because of the saving name of the Risen and Living Jesus. Peter used the man’s obviously miraculous healing as an opportunity to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins in that same holy name to all nations, beginning right there in the heart of Jerusalem. “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?” It wasn’t their power; it was the power of Jesus, “whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence, when he had decided to release him.” He told them they preferred Barabbas over the “Holy and Righteous One” and murdered the “Author of life” — both of the latter terms expressions that Jesus was God. “But,” St. Peter said, “God raised him from the dead; of this we are all witnesses. And by faith in his name, this man, whom you see and know, his name has made strong.” So after he helps them through their period of incredulity or hardness of heart, he seeks to get them to the stage of faith by demonstrating how all that happened to Jesus was supposed to happen, and offer to them the same mercy through repentance and the forgiveness of sins that Jesus had offered them. “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.” God had also foretold the times of reconciliation, the “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. … For you first, God raised up his servant [Jesus] and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.” Just as much as Peter who had his heart, mind and mouth opened by the Lord to be a witness of all the things that happened to Jesus, he also became a witness by his life and not just by his lips. St. Peter had said that God prophesied that “his Christ would suffer,” and that’s not just a reference to Jesus the “anointed,” the “Messiah,” (which is what the Greek word “Christ” means) but for everyone who is anointed by God in union with Jesus. Every Christian is, literally, a little Christ and will suffer on account of our witness to him. Peter and John, immediately after this scene are going to be arrested by the very same people who conspired to have Jesus crucified. But they were unafraid because if God could raise Jesus from crucifixion on the third day, then there was no need for any of his followers to fear even brutal death. That’s why they were able to preach with a holy parrhesia, a Spirit-inspired boldness, that no one could intimidate. They weren’t afraid to suffer any longer because they knew that their sufferings would be salvific and their death would be merely a change of address, to a place where Jesus had gone to prepare for them.
    • We similarly, having met the Risen Lord Jesus, having been schooled by him in Sacred Scripture, having believed in him, are now called like Peter to be witnesses to the fact that he is very much alive. The same Jesus who met the terrified disciples in the Upper Room meets us here to bring about that transformation. Just as he led them through a “liturgy of the word” to understand how all that the prophets and he had foretold had to transpire, so he has led us on a similar journey. Just as he told them to see and touch him, so he wants us not just to touch him but to be touched by him on the inside and become one with him in Holy Communion. And just as he sent them out as witnesses of risen life and his teachings to the end of the world, beginning from Jerusalem, so he will say to us at the end of this Mass, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” to all nations, beginning from West 114th Street. We will suffer for doing so, but it’s here that Jesus not only opens our minds and mouths but strengthens us to remain faithful when we do, so that repentance for the forgiveness of sins — and the Divine Mercy that meets that repentance — will allow people to learn how to hear, know, love and proclaim Jesus’ holy, saving name, receive and live by his Divine Mercy, and come to share in this world and forever Jesus’ resurrection!
    •  

      The readings for today’s Mass were: 

      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.”
      Responsorial Psalm
      PS 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.
      Gospel
      LK 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.”

      The post Witnesses of the Risen One, Easter Thursday, April 4, 2024 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

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