OMELIE / Omelie EN

18 apr 2021

18/04/2021 – 3rd SUNDAY of Easter - year B

18/04/2021 – 3^rd SUNDAY of Easter - year B

Reading 1 ACTS 3,13-15.17-19 Psalm 4 Reading 2 1JN 2,1-5° Gospel LK 24,35-48

All today’s readings are talking about sins, nay, about remission of sins. Remission of sins means going back to be in communion with the Father, and therefore, obviously, with the Son and with the children of God. This is possible thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection. Whoever lift their eyes to Jesus’ cross and welcome Him risen, they meet the Father who has sent Him to us, has introduced Him to us as His Beloved and has confirmed it through the miracles He has performed. Peter, speaking for the first time in public, invites those who had wanted the Lord’s death to repent and change their life in order to be able to receive forgiveness for this and all the other sins. Without forgiveness, in fact, what is our life? Men are sad because they feel like they need to be forgiven, they need to have back their connection to the source of life. Men are angry and are tense when a burden on their heart keeps them bound and oppressed. Men easily look at each other with suspicion because they are hiding something. Fear is dominating men because they are afraid of dying, and they are afraid because their relationship with God is not serene and trusty, it is spoiled by the sins.

Jesus has welcomed death as an act of love for us because He knew that we, believing in Him risen, would receive forgiveness, and with forgiveness life. Forgiveness is necessary in families, between husband and wife, between brother and brother, between parents and children; it is necessary in society, between colleagues at work and between mates during free time; it is necessary everywhere, even among friends. Forgiveness is life, peace, joy, it is the first step towards true communion. There, where forgiveness is not offered and received, there is no believing in each other, there is no serenity, freedom and joy. If in a family there is no forgiveness, if in a society there is no forgiveness, there everyone will have to rely on themselves only, and so solitude, sadness and desperation grow.

Is it possible to be forgiven? Saint John is showing us Jesus as the defence attorney between us and God the Father, between us sinners and the just and holy Father. The Father does not burden us with our sins because Jesus comes in the middle, who we have joined because we have believed in Him and we have been baptised in His name. Therefore, we love Him, and we love Him by obeying “His commandments”, observing His words. Observing His word brings our love to perfection, so also our similarity to God.

In today’s gospel we have heard Jesus’ last words to His disciples, words about their missions in the world: “repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem”. Jesus has appeared to His own, risen, in order to assign them this task: they will invite all peoples to conversion, announcing them the Father’s will to forgive. They will start from Jerusalem, from those people then who had behaved as enemies of theirs. Exactly to them, first, needs to be advised conversion and needs to be announced forgiveness.

In the Christian’s heart there need to be no space for resentment or antipathy, but only for the Father’s desire to see all His children gathered around His Son. First of all men need to realise they are sinners, so that they are different from how God would like us to be, that we have left out of our behaviour love, that we have not behaved as children of His. Who can say that they have never sinned?

If someone disobeys God, does not love Him, his very knowledge of God is spoiled. When instead we do as He says, then He dwells in us with His perfect love. And then we also have the joy and strength to invite our brethren, and also whoever still does not know the Father, to convert in order to receive His forgiveness.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, because you let us see the possibility to be forgiven and you give us yourself the courage to ask for and grant forgiveness, to become therefore co-operators of the Father’s love!