Newsletter —Third Sunday of Easter B – 14th April 2024
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Our First Reading is taken from Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15,17-19: Peter preaches that Jesus has been raised from the dead and calls upon the people to repent.
The Responsorial Psalm is from Psalm 4: A prayer seeking God’s favour.
Today’s Second Reading is 1 John 2:1-5a: Those who know God keep his commandments.
This Sunday’s Gospel Reading is Luke 24:35-48: Jesus appears again to his disciples and shares a meal with them.
Today’s reading, taken from the Gospel of Luke, follows immediately after the report of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus greets his disciples with the words, “Peace be with you.” This is a most appropriate greeting. The disciples have witnessed the death of someone they loved, and they now fear for their own lives as well. Peace is what they need more than anything else. Jesus often connects this greeting of peace with another gift—forgiveness. In today’s Gospel, this connection is made in the final verses.
Even as they hear Jesus’ greeting of peace, the disciples are startled and terrified. They mistake Jesus for a ghost. Yet the figure before them is not a ghost; Jesus invites them to experience his resurrected body with their senses, to look and to touch. The figure before them is flesh and bone, still bearing the marks of crucifixion. Although the disciples cannot forget his suffering and death, peace begins to take root in their hearts, as their fears turn to joy and amazement. As further proof of his identity and of his resurrected body, Jesus eats with his disciples.
Luke’s report of the Last Supper and the meals that Jesus shared after his Resurrection unveil for us the significance of the Eucharist. Having shared a meal with his disciples, Jesus now uncovers for them the significance of what was written about him in the Scriptures. So, too, our celebration of the Mass is an encounter with Jesus, through the Word and the Sacrament of the Eucharist. As Jesus commissions his disciples to be witnesses to what Scriptures foretold, our celebration of the Eucharist commissions us. Like the disciples, we are sent to announce the good news of Jesus’ forgiveness of sins.
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