Saturday April 23, 2022

Octave of Easter Saturday

 

We Cannot Keep from Speaking       

If we have really encountered the Risen Lord in faith, nothing can stop us from proclaiming him and his Good News. But stronger and more convincing than whatever we say will be the language of our attitudes and actions. As this was the experience of the apostles, it should also be ours. We live the same life as other people, do the same things, but we should do them in a different way if we have really met Christ.

                    

First Reading: Acts 4:13-22 

They couldn’t take their eyes off them—Peter and John standing there so confident, so sure of themselves! Their fascination deepened when they realized these two were laymen with no training in Scripture or formal education. They recognized them as companions of Jesus, but with the man right before them, seeing him standing there so upright—so healed!—what could they say against that?

They sent them out of the room so they could work out a plan. They talked it over: “What can we do with these men? By now it’s known all over town that a miracle has occurred, and that they are behind it. There is no way we can refute that. But so that it doesn’t go any further, let’s silence them with threats so they won’t dare to use Jesus’ name ever again with anyone.”

They called them back and warned them that they were on no account ever again to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John spoke right back, “Whether it’s right in God’s eyes to listen to you rather than to God, you decide. As for us, there’s no question—we can’t keep quiet about what we’ve seen and heard.”

The religious leaders renewed their threats, but then released them. They couldn’t come up with a charge that would stick, that would keep them in jail. The people wouldn’t have stood for it—they were all praising God over what had happened. The man who had been miraculously healed was over forty years old.

 

Gospel: Mark 16:9-16 

After rising from the dead, Jesus appeared early on Sunday morning to Mary Magdalene, whom he had delivered from seven demons. She went to his former companions, now weeping and carrying on, and told them. When they heard her report that she had seen him alive and well, they didn’t believe her.

Later he appeared, but in a different form, to two of them out walking in the countryside. They went back and told the rest, but they weren’t believed either.

Still later, as the Eleven were eating supper, he appeared and took them to task most severely for their stubborn unbelief, refusing to believe those who had seen him raised up. Then he said, “Go into the world. Go everywhere and announce the Message of God’s good news to one and all. Whoever believes and is baptized is saved; whoever refuses to believe is damned.

 

Prayer

Our God and Father,
your Son Jesus, lived among us,
flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood.
He died for our sake
and you raised him back to life.
May we experience his love and his presence
to such an extent,
that we can never stop proclaiming
what we have seen and heard,
and that people may give glory to you, our God.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, the Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

If you feel being called by the Lord, do not doubt…

People did not recognize Jesus very easily when he appeared to them after his resurrection. Mary Magdalene mistook him for the gardener (John 20:15). Many of the disciples were scared that they were seeing a ghost (Luke 24:37); he showed himself “in another form” to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Mark 16:12). But they did not recognise him.
“Seeing is believing,” is an old saying. Seeing is accepted as “our principal source of knowledge,” according to Aristotle. But this kind of sight was not adequate to recognizing the risen Christ. It requires a seeing with the heart and the spirit, not with the eyes. People who claim to have seen apparitions give us the impression that they have exceptional faith. That is a wrong assumption. But, remember what Jesus told Thomas and other disciples: “Blessed are those who believe without seeing!”
“We cannot grasp what God is,” said St Thomas Aquinas. It is the other way around: we are grasped by God; we are possessed by God. We cannot comprehend him – either with our eyesight or with our minds.
We can only join St Paul who prays for the Ephesians that they may by “knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge… be filled with the utter fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).
Today’s Gospel has three witnesses: the first, Mary Magdalene reported that Jesus was risen and was alive, but “They would not believe her.” The second is the testimony of the disciples to Emmaus, but, “They did not believe them.” But in the third, Jesus entrusts his epic project of preaching the Gospel to this still unbelieving or still doubting group of disciples. “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News.”
Apparently, you don’t need a perfect faith to join the Mission of Jesus. It is given to you as you go. Faith in Jesus is for their use on the road. it is not a certificate to be kept in the files. If we feel that we are called to work for the Lord, just do it and grace will be given to us as we go. Grace is not given for tomorrow; it is always for now.
Pope Francis writes in Joy of the Gospel: “every Christian, in any place and situation in which he is…there is no reason for anyone to think that this invitation is not for him, because “no one is excluded from the joy reported by the Lord.” Those who take risks, the Lord does not disappoint, and when someone takes a small step towards Jesus, they discover that He already awaits their arrival with open arms ”(EG 3).

 

Video available on Youtube: If you feel being called by the Lord, do not doubt…