3rd Sunday of Easter – Year A
Today we celebrate the 3rd week of Easter – an event so marvelous that it takes us fifty days until we can fully realize what happened, until the Spirit of God comes upon us as tongues of fire to make known the event which is commemorated in today’s gospel – namely, that Jesus Christ is always walking at our side. This is an astounding fact and one that we fail all too often to realize and remember. Would we all do some of the things that we do if we truly believed that Jesus Christ was walking at our side? Would we indulge some of the passions we hide from others if we knew that Jesus Christ is always present with us, watching us, and doing so with a love so great that He would still die for us if necessary. He told Julian of Norwich that He has loved us so much that He would have suffered even more than He did, if possible. But such was not possible. Even God could not suffer more than Jesus did out of love for us. And precisely because of this, He still walks with us, He still loves us, and He still breaks bread with us.
Paul cries out to the people of Israel just after having received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost the words which we heard in the first reading: “This Jesus God raised up from death and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured this out” upon us. It is almost as if God is saying to us: “You did all this to try and deny my love for you. Now try again!” But Peter urges us in the second reading: “Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”
And what is that implanted word but the very Word of God, Jesus Himself, who walks with us in all of the events of life. Like the disciples in the gospel, we walk the paths of life, dejected and disappointed and even disillusioned because things have not gone the way we had hoped. “We had hoped…”!! These are the very words which fill our vocabulary in every difficult situation. “I thought that I would find the perfect way of life in this community, but… I had hoped!” Or, “I thought that I would find the perfect partner if life with this woman or man, but… I had hoped!” Or, “I thought that this degree would open the door for the perfect job, but… I had hoped!”
Life is filled with dashed hopes for all of us, and yet the final reason for this is that we fail to recognize Jesus Christ walking with us, inviting us to follow in His footsteps, even if that be steps which lead to Calvary. Just as His life was leading ultimately to Calvary, so our lives will contain many difficulties and heart aches and disillusionment. But to the extent that this is true, it is because, like the disciples, “we had hoped!” But we fail to recognize that Jesus Himself is walking with us in those very circumstances, leading us to a fuller life than we had planned or hoped for, because it is a life which is not limited solely to this life. He has chosen each one of us to be children of His heavenly Father, and He makes this known to us precisely in the very service which we are sharing in now, namely, “in the breaking of the bread”.
But this breaking of bread is not limited to the Eucharistic celebration. It is to be found in every event or circumstance which seems to break us in some way. Jesus Himself came to the glory of the resurrection by being broken on Calvary. And we are called to follow on the same path – it is through the myriad of times we experience: “we had hoped!” that we are called also to a new resurrection with Christ.
But Jesus knows full well how slow we are to believe. Even His own disciples were slow to believe, and we can be no better than they. And so Jesus chooses to walk with us, to share with us the pains and sorrows and disappointments of life, but still constantly promising us, as He promised the thief on the Cross: “This day, you will be with me in paradise!” It is with confidence in that promise that we approach the altar this day, in order to know Him anew “in the breaking of the bread”.