OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016

30/04/2017 - 3rd Sunday of Easter- A

30/04/2017 -  3rd Sunday of Easter- A 

1st reading Acts 2,14.22-33 * from Psalm  15 * 2nd reading 1Pt 1,17-21 * Gospel Lk 24,13-35

On Pentecost Day, Peter is talking about God sending Jesus, and about Jesus sending forth the Holy Spirit, and so he concludes: “what you see and hear”. He is not talking about an idea or a good story, he intends to explain what is happening, those events that everybody can witness. It is like if he said: “Look at us, I am explaining you why we are as we are.” or maybe: “Look at the Church, our community of parishioners, I am explaining you why it is so beautiful and attractive.” We should say the same thing today, but we do not dare because…maybe it is not really true that our community it is beautiful. Our community is like the face of a person who consternates us and puzzles us, because we can see in it that its unfaithfulness to our Lord – sadly – is revealed through some divisions, if not even some dissensions. These are meant to highlight someone’s good reasons against those of another one’s, but in reality they just reveal that the Holy Spirit is still far, away from both the one and the other at the same time.

In his letter, St. Peter gives us again an invaluable piece of advice in order to overcome our incongruences: “if you address as Father him who judges […] according to each individual's deeds, live out the time of your exile here in reverent awe”. Let’s think again about the words we use, in order to make them sound truthful and really reflect what is in our hearts. Do we call God <Father>? Therefore, we should modify our thoughts, our way to speak and our behaviour accordingly. If we call God with the lovingly and earnest name <Father this means that we are interested in His desires, that we want to obey Him, that we want to learn how to live from Him. We will behave then towards other people in a way that reflects the love of a father, like children loved by Him and supported by Him. On this earth, continues Peter, we are living “out the time of your exile”: this is a good reason not to put down roots, not to keep anything to ourselves, no riches, no properties, like we would hold on to something stable and certain. This is “the futile way of life handed down from your ancestors” that has not been useful to us, on the contrary it is harming us. The “precious blood as of a blameless and spotless lamb, Christ” has rescued us from it. Therefore, we will try to imitate Jesus’ life, we will base all our thoughts and our choices on His word. Jesus Himself approaches those who are upset and discouraged. We heard the account of the two men that are travelling on Easter Day, disheartened despite the news they heard from the women coming back from the tomb. Who is that man who approaches them and walks with them, listening to them and  and asking them questions? That man who knows how to answer to them in a way that fills them with wonder and reminds them the Sacred Scriptures? A man that is like a stranger, and yet knows how to solve all their doubts and answer all their questions, clearly and with certainty! He is a man that dares to treat them as “foolish men, so slow to believe”, and then has humility enough to explain all those events with a faith that leaves them open-mouthed! This is how it is for anybody who lives with God, he is certain and humble at the same time. They have that certainty that  God’s words have, and that humility that characterizes God Himself. It is with this humility that that man accepted their invitation to stop by and spend the night with them. But, at the moment in which He takes the bread in His hands, behold, the two disciples wake up like from a dream: “It is Him!” But of Him only remains the joy of having met Him, having listened to Him and having enjoyed His company. They have to content themselves with this, and with this they are happy enough. The joy they derived from meeting him and listening to him drives them back on the road, even if it is already dark outside. And they are back in Jerusalem, among the others, ready to listen to them and to relate their unexpected encounter.

All these things, St. Peter’s words and the two disciples joining the others in the cenacle, truly are and must be for us a continuous stimulus, a source of enthusiastic questions. Do I live in a way that excite in others the desire to know the source of my life? Answering the questions of the people around me, can I refer to the faith I am living and that sustains me? Do I deserve too the name of “foolish”, like the two disciples travelling to Emmaus? (Jesus called them in that way because they were thinking without taking into account the Scriptures: as a matter of fact, they were not trying to remember them in order to understand better their life with their help; even when they were in doubt, they were not trying to find there answers.) Are there any wake-up calls that drive me to join my brothers and sisters believers? Do I consider Jesus alive and present in my life and in the life of the Church? When I know that the bread is being broken, do I realise that it is the same Jesus that breaks it for me, too? Do I let myself to be drawn to the place in which the Bread, the Eucharist, is being broken? Do I tell my experiences of faith? Do I listen to those that are told by other believers? When I pray the Our Father, do I know how to stress the word <Father> properly? I will do that in the next days. I call God my Father; therefore, I will behave accordingly: I will live trustfully, because I know that He loves me, and I will love my brothers and sisters because God the father gave me a reason to and the capability to do so. The risen Jesus will walk with me!