April 23, 2023; 3rd Sunday of Easter (Year A)

Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-33; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Lk. 24:13-35

 

Suffering Is Part of Life! 

1.    In today’s Gospel, Jesus called two of his Disciples fools. Why? The two men on the road to Emmaus were frustrated and disappointed. They were upset with Jesus for acting as a stranger in Jerusalem and asking them a question. “What are you talking about to each other as you walk along?” How could Jesus ask them such a question: “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what has happened there these last few days? “What things?” Christ asked them. Christ wants to know what is going on in our lives. He wants us to tell Him about our troubles, sadness, worries, and joys. He wants us to share our stories with Him. He wants us to tell him about the violence in our cities and how irresponsible gun ownership devastates the lives of ordinary people without guns. He tells us, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.” (Matt. 11:28-30). When we are confused, as the men on the road to Emmaus were, we must find Jesus walking on the road with us. Can we identify him? When in doubt, we must turn to Him for comfort. When we are disappointed, Christ will console us. He understands us now more than ever. Christ will always meet us on the way of our worries, fears, and anxiety. He will ask questions, and He will listen attentively to us. 

2.    “There at times when our sterile worries, futile pleasures, and vain preoccupations cloud our eyes so much that we cannot recognize the Lord as we should. As their conversation reveals, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were thoroughly distracted, unfocused, frightened, and downhearted.” (New Horizon Homilies, Philip John, SSP, and Premdas, SSP). Their answer to Jesus clearly showed their frustration. They closed their minds to the Scriptures. One could feel their incredulity and doubts as they recounted their litany of woes to the stranger. They told him: “We were hoping He would be the one to redeem Israel.” (Acts 2:21). We have been tempted many times to turn away from God, Christ, and the Church because our expectations were unmet.

 

3.    Often, we think that once we go to Church, say our prayers, pay tithes, and keep the commandments, our problems will be solved. How false are these assumptions? Many people have been so disappointed by the sexual abuse of clergy that they swore never to return to or give money to the Church. Others stopped giving because they felt the Church had disappointed them. Yet others turned away because they disagreed with the Church’s teaching on marriage, divorce, gay marriage, and the like. Many have refused to approach the Lord in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and outrightly declined to go to confession. Like the men on the way to Emmaus followed the Lord with hope, joy, and belief that God sent him to establish His kingdom on earth, we often feel that way too. But when the storms of life hit us hard, we are disillusioned and stop believing in God and the Church.

4.    “Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and then to enter his glory?” Jesus then explained what was said about himself in all the scriptures, beginning with Moses and the prophets’ writings. Often in our frustration and despair, we turn away from Jesus, but He never abandons us; He speaks to our hearts. As the two men on the road to Emmaus who listened to a stranger talk to their hearts, Jesus is the stranger who walks with us on our road of sadness and stress. He will open our minds to the Scriptures, and our hearts will burn within us. He will lead us to the Eucharist and give us His body to eat and His blood to drink.

5.    Whenever we turn away from the Church, Christ comes in search of us. He will never force himself on us but will always wait to be invited. And after explaining the Scriptures to the two men, He did as if He was going on further, waiting for them to ask Him in. Once He was invited in, He broke the bread with them. They rediscovered their Lord at the breaking of the bread. He was never far from them; they were too preoccupied to see Him. Let us pray that we may see Jesus who stands at the door of our hearts and knocks. May we hear the voice of Jesus as he breaks the Word that burns our hearts and breaks the Bread that feeds us and makes us whole? Amen.  

Rev. Augustine Etemma Inwang, MSP

April 16, 2023; 2nd Sunday of Easter; Divine Mercy Sunday (Year A)

 

Readings: Acts 2:42-47; 1Peter 1:3-9; Jn. 20:19-31 

The Divine Mercy Is Our Easter Gift 

1.    Today, the 2nd Sunday of Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday. Today we celebrate God’s immense mercy, compassion, and love for humankind. St. John Paul ll declared this Sunday as divine Sunday on April 30, 2000, during the Canonization of Faustina Kowalska. Sr. Faustina had a personal apparition of Jesus. According to her, Jesus promised that a person who goes to sacramental confession and receives Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday should receive total forgiveness of all sins and punishment. In his Easter message on April 22, 2001, Pope John Paul ll noted: “Jesus said to St. Faustyna one day: “Humanity will never find peace until it turns with trust to Divine Mercy.” Divine Mercy! The Church receives this Easter gift from Christ and offers it to humanity.” 

2.    In today’s first reading, we see the community of God’s people bound together in mercy and love. Broken, yes, but full of hope. They enjoyed communal life, sharing, selling property and goods, caring for each one’s needs, and sharing meals. In this community, there was someone who denied Christ, those who ran away from Him, one who was absent from community gathering and prayer, and of course, those who wanted a share in the restored kingdom of Israel. Yet in the Gospel, Christ met them all together and wished them peace. There was no condemnation, judgment, malice, or anger, only love, forgiveness, and mercy. Come, touch my wounds, and be healed. Doubt no longer, and it is I, do not be afraid. 

3.    In that community, there was healing and forgiveness; faith was restored, and a profession of faith was made: My Lord and my God! This is what mercy means: to have a heart for those who suffer or a heart willing to suffer for others. “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.” (1 Peter 2:21). But that is not all. Christ gave the Spirit to His Apostles and entrusted to them the power to forgive sins. We experience the mercy of God more when we humble ourselves and go to Him in the sacrament of reconciliation and penance. There we meet, face to face with the God of mercy and love, a God of forgiveness, who said through Ezekiel the prophet: “As I live, says the Lord God, I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but rather in the wicked man’s conversion, that he may live.” (33:11).

4.    In the Paschal mystery we just celebrated, God appeared to us as a tender-hearted Father who does not give up in the face of his children’s ingratitude and is always ready to forgive. With the mercy of God, we know and are convinced that good will always triumph over evil, that life is stronger than death, and that God’s love is more powerful than our sins. St. Paul stated thus, “Where sin increased, grace overflow all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 5:21-22).

5.    Our opening prayer address the Father as “God of everlasting mercy.” And the psalm repeated several times, “His steadfast love endures forever.” All these readings illustrate God’s mercy in action. We are invited to feed the hungry, fight injustice, stand up for the truth and justice, and to know that God’s mercy is everlasting. Suppose we see ourselves as undeserved recipients of God’s mercy and love. In that case, we will understand that, ultimately, mercy results not so much from human effort but from God’s gift to humanity. 

6.    And so today, we are invited to experience God’s mercy if, in turn, we want to forgive others. That is what we pray for in the Lord’s prayer: “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The spiral of hatred and violence, which stains with blood the path of so many individuals and nations the world over, can only be broken and healed by the miracle of forgiveness and mercy. God’s mercy is His way of dealing with the broken world, and humanity is consumed with an insatiable hunger for power. Let us commit our lives to the mercy of God. Let us resolve today to show mercy instead of judging others harshly and irrationally. May we not be so concerned with the wrongdoings of others for, “If you, Lord, mark our sins, Lord, who can stand? But with you is forgiveness, and so you are revered.” (Ps. 130:3). May we treat others as we want to be treated ourselves. Amen.

 

                                           Rev. Augustine Etemma Inwang, MSP

April 09, 2023; Easter Sunday (Year A)

Readings: Acts 10:34, 37-43; Col. 3:1-4; Jn. 20:1-9

 

Christ is Risen, Alleluia!

1.    I always imagine the day of the resurrection to be chaotic! No one expected Christ to rise from the dead. He did. He told his apostles, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” (Matt. 20:18-19). They neither believed him nor took Him seriously. After all, after the above prediction of his death and resurrection, the mother of the sons of Zebedee wanted Jesus to “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.” (Matt. 20:21). 

 

2.    Like His disciples and apostles, we, too, are inundated with our issues and problems than to be bothered with the resurrection of Christ. You would recall that at the announcement of the birth of Christ, the Angel said: “And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” (Lk. 1:36-37). And so, when Mary went to the tomb and did not find the body, she panicked and ran to Peter and John, who were shocked when they were told, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him.” Could it be true? Now they remembered he had said, “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” (Mt.16:21). The empty tomb made one thing sure, Christ is not in the grave. Could he have indeed been raised! Everyone can see the tomb, but did everyone believe that He had been raised? It is easy to see with our eyes but to believe, and we must have faith. Seeing is nothing; believing is everything. It is when we believe that we see; we walk by faith, not by sight.

 

3.    The resurrection of Christ demonstrates that we are Easter people living in a Good Friday world. We doubt because we are broken and weak. We have anger issues and are short-tempered, stubborn, jealous, ill-mannered, frustrated, and lazy. But the resurrection of Christ assures us that God loves us and that Christ has conquered our weaknesses, sin, and death. We have to believe that to every Good Friday, there is Easter Sunday. We know that every failure has the strength of the risen Lord. Every hurt and wrongdoing we can forgive is a prove of the resurrection of Christ. When we give in charity, say kind words, console, and show compassion and mercy, every visit to the sick or kindness to the oppressed attest to the resurrection and our faith in the risen Lord. We may be weak, but our risen Lord is strong. We are Easter people and so cannot stop singing alleluia. According to Paul: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” (Col. 3:1). “He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” (Philippians 3:21). The resurrection changed Peter from a coward to a fearless preacher; He changed Paul from anti-Christ to his courageous defender. He changed men and women down through the ages to carry the gospel to the ends of the world. Jesus’ resurrection is an invitation to share in his eternal life. He showed Thomas his wounded hands and side and healed his unbelief. We must reach and touch his wounds so that he may heal us. 

 

4.    The resurrection of Christ taught us once more that adversity always brings out the best in humanity. Though we do not know what tomorrow holds, we know who holds tomorrow. Christ has risen, and so we rejoice! May the resurrection of Christ help us to see things and people differently. May it teach us to have a better understanding of the teaching of Christ so that we may be generous, prayerful, gracious, forgiving, loving, tolerant, and accommodating. May we have the same experience that the Apostles had when they emerged from the Upper Room; that filled with the Spirit of the risen Lord, we may speak the word of God boldly so that those who hear us will say, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his own native language? …yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” (Acts 7-11). Rejoice, for Christ is indeed risen. Alleluia!

 

                                    Rev. Augustine Etemma Inwang, MSP