3 rd.Sunday of EASTER (Year B) April 14, 2024.
The common theme of today’s readings is a challenge to our Faith in the living presence of the risen Lord. That Faith should strengthen our Hope in His promises, call us to true repentance for our sins, and lead us to bearing witness to Christ by our works of Charity. Does our Faith do that for us? The readings also remind us that the purpose of Jesus’ death and Resurrection was to save us from our sins. Hence, they invite us to make our witness-bearing to the risen Lord more effective by repenting of our sins, renewing our lives, and meeting Jesus in the Word of God and at the Eucharistic Table.
Significance: Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus had to convince the disciples that he wasn’t a ghost. He had to dispel their doubts and their fears. He showed them his hands and his feet. He invited them to touch him and see that he was real. And he even ate a piece of cooked fish with them -- all to prove that he was alive and not a ghost or spirit. He stood there before them, as real and alive as he had been over the past three days.
Life message: We need to share the apostles’ "Upper Room Experience" in the Holy Mass: The same Jesus who, in the Upper Room, the Cenacle, prepared the disciples for their preaching and witnessing mission, is present with us in the Eucharistic celebration. In the "Liturgy of the Word” of God, Jesus speaks to us. In the "Liturgy of the Eucharist," Jesus becomes our spiritual food and drink. Thus, today's Gospel scene is repeated every Sunday on our parish altars. And so, like the early disciples, we come together to repent of our sins, express our gratitude for blessings received, listen to God’s word, and offer our lives to God along with our petitions and His gifts of consecrated Bread and Wine. We also consume the spiritual food Jesus supplies, thus gaining the strength necessary for sharing Christ’s message with the entire world, mainly by living transparent Christian lives.
Conclusion: Jesus needs Spirit-filled followers to be his eyes, ears, hands and feet so that we may bear witness to his love, mercy and forgiveness by exercising these gifts in our compassionate loving service of all our brothers and sisters. The Church desperately needs dedicated witnesses: priests, deacons, Brothers, Sisters, parents, teachers, doctors, nurses, old folks, young folks – all of us. The essence of bearing witness is to testify by our lives that the power of the risen Jesus has touched and transformed us.