To watch Fr. Joe’s homily from the Third Sunday of Easter: CLICK HERE!
The central theme of our Scriptures today is: Jesus is Risen! It’s True! Jesus is Risen!
And the central role of the Church, the People of God is PROCLAIMING that JESUS is Risen!
In a sentence, we are to be DISCIPLES and DISCIPLE-MAKERS led by the Word of God and sustained by the Eucharist. This is exactly what we see in our readings today, especially in the account of the two disciples and their encounter with Jesus on the Road to Emmaus.
We might even say this Gospel story reminds us of the Mass, as we hear God’s Word that touches our hearts and then we are led to the breaking of the bread, the Eucharist.
But it does not stop there, as one of the dismissals for the end of Mass says, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!” That is exactly what the two disciples did in today’s Gospel!
How do our lives some 2,000 years after the death of Jesus, proclaim that “Jesus is ALIVE!”
We, like Jesus, do this in two ways: we talk and we act. We talk, we tell the stories faith, hope and love that are centered in God, centered in Jesus the Son of God. We act upon our faith, we live the Word with our families, our children, our friends, the people of our everyday life that we know and do not know.
We are living it now…
- As we teach our children at home…
- As we reach out to others with a phone call, an email, an offer to assist – in some way.
- As we interact with those strangers we call family.
- As comedian Jim Gaffigan says of his family of 7 in quarantine: We wake up, eat, clean, argue… and some days we mix it up
Where have our eyes been opened? Where have we seen Jesus alive in our midst, in days past, today? Watch the news and see and hear the stories of people caring in any number of ways that says: Jesus lives – He is alive!
The encounter with Jesus, in the gospel today, took place in very ordinary places: on a road; at an inn (home).
Like the Disciples of today’s Gospel, may we not only come to know Jesus as we journey thru life, but may we proclaim Jesus through the lives we live in those everyday places, with the many everyday people we meet and walk with on our common journey of life and faith.
Bob Hope, the comedian, was asked what makes up a good homily, to which he quipped, “a good beginning and a good end; and the closer they are to each other the better.”
Well, I was going to try to share with you a short Oscar Winning Animation entitled: “Ticket without a Seat”. Well it did not work out as good as I wanted… so after Mass is ended please go to YouTube and type in “Ticket without a Seat”. It’s 3 minutes and 4 seconds. Even if you have seen it, watch it again. Great message that goes along with today’s homily. Call it homework, if you want, but I call it living the Gospel, that Jesus is Alive!