12 April 2023 - Teresa of the Andes - Wednesday of the Octave of Easter - Luke 24:13-35

     As we celebrate the Wednesday of the Octave of Easter today, we hear the familiar Gospel of the Road to Emmaus. This Gospel reading of the disciples meeting Jesus on their journey appeals to all of us as his disciples, since we all encounter Jesus on our own pilgrimage journey. We might wonder why the disciples were on the road that day.  Were they afraid?  Were they trying to run away from something? 

       These disciples were broken, frustrated, angry, and confused.  Through their interaction with Jesus, through the kindness they offer to a supposed stranger, through the breaking open of God’s word and the breaking of bread together, these disciples recognize him, they believe, and they bring the Gospel message to others.  

       We, too, are called to offer acts of kindness to the stranger and the broken.  We, too, are to break open God’s word, to have his word interact with the reality of our lives. The Eucharist is a wonderful gift was receive in the Church. In the Eucharist, in the breaking of the bread at the Lord’s table, we are to receive nourishment and new life.

     St Teresa of the Andes was a Carmelite nun who died on this date (April 12) at the age of 19 in 1920 in the country of Chile in South America.  She is the first saint canonized from that devoutly Catholic country. Pope John Paul II named her as a patron saint of the youth. At her canonization in 1993, Pope John Paul II spoke about her joyful youthful enthusiasm and the great example of faith she gives to the youth of our modern era. We pray for our youth in the Diocese of Jackson and ask for her prayers for them as we celebrate St Teresa of the Andes on her feast day today.  She wrote in a letter: "A soul united to Jesus and identified with him can do everything. It seems to me that this can be reached only by prayer.”  She also wrote: “I am God’s. He created me and is my beginning and my end.”  She died of typhus during Holy Week.  More than 100,000 pilgrims visit her shrine each year.   We unite our prayers to the intercessions of St Teresa of the Andes today.