In our busy modern world, most of us are pulled in so many different directions; it seems like we finish one thing and we're already doing the next thing on our to do list. During the 40 days of Lent, we practiced the Lenten disciplines of fasting, prayer, and penance. On Easter weekend, the joy of the risen Lord entered into our hearts. But, Easter does not just end with Easter morning - Easter is a season that lasts all the way to Pentecost, which falls on May 20th this year. During the Easter season, our Sunday readings tell us about the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, helping us to reflect upon what the risen Christ means to us in our lives of faith.
Why would we need any further explanation? Christ has risen: what’s so complicated about that? Peter tells us in the Acts of the Apostles that the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus. Jesus is glorified! He is risen! What did this really mean to the followers of Jesus right after his resurrection? What does it mean to us today? That's what these post-resurrection appearances in the readings of the Easter season help us figure out.
There are a lot of emotions in today's Gospel, feelings that some of us also might have in our own lives. The disciples were terrified, thinking they’d seen a ghost. They're troubled and skeptical. After seeing Jesus’ hands and feet, after starting to realize who he truly is, they are incredulous and amazed. The disciples are coming to terms with what the resurrected Jesus is all about; this is a radical new reality. Perhaps. we, too, wonder what relevance the resurrection has for us, how the risen Christ can transform our reality.
Luke's Gospel tells us that the risen Jesus personally opened the minds of the disciples to the fuller meaning of the words he spoke during his lifetime. He offered a deeper understanding of the prophets, the psalms, and the law in the Hebrew Scriptures that he had fulfilled. The experience of the risen Christ for these original disciples and for those of us who follow Jesus today is to open our minds and hearts to this.
But how do we experience the risen Christ as a reality? Incredulous joy and amazement: that is what the disciples felt in the midst of the reality of the risen Christ. Pope Francis had issued an encyclical The Joy of the Gospel several years ago. In addition, I came across a pastoral letter that former Bishop Terry Steib of Memphis had issued back in 2009. I used this letter as a study text with the prisoners I visited at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl; it is entitled: Living our Catholicism: That Our Joy May Be Complete.
In experiencing the risen Christ in our lives, Bishop Steib asserts that we shouldn't approach our faith primarily as a code to live by or a philosophy of life, but rather as a faith that rests in a real, historical person: Jesus of Nazareth, who literally embodies God for us. We sometimes take for granted the fact that God entered human history and became flesh. With great joy, we proclaim that the entire Christ event is still with us today. The risen Christ lives today in our Church's liturgy and symbols, in the sacraments and the Word of God, and in our interactions with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Through these many ways, the risen Jesus continues to be enfleshed by us, for us, and among us in the here and now. Bishop Steib emphasizes that our joy in the risen Lord should flow out of our love of God and love of neighbor, which are inseparable from one another. Only if we serve our neighbor can our eyes be truly opened to the reality of the risen Christ in our world, to the reality of how much God loves us. Love grows through love, it's as simple as that.
It is not enough for us to go to mass regularly or to fulfill what we see as the basic requirements demanded of us as Catholics. Being Catholic and living with the reality of the risen Christ means that we live out our faith doing what Jesus asks us to do. It means that we're constantly transformed by intentionally seeking to live in God's love, by sharing that love in a variety of life-changing ways.
Our Easter season helps us discover what the risen Christ is all about, it helps us experience the reality of the resurrection in our lives, and it helps us live out our Catholic faith in the joy of the risen Christ. May we heed this call.
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