Third Sunday of Easter Year – B 2009

From today’s Gospel.

We learn that God doesn’t give up easy…
When Jesus appears to his apostles
He appears to a broken, disillusioned, and even frightened group of men.

Even when they see him they are incredulous,
they can’t believe what they see.

He has to repeatedly engage them, calm them, and coax them to belief.

“Look at my hands and my feet,
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have."
And as he said this,
he showed them his hands and his feet.”

It took the disciples a while to come to believe and Jesus was persistent he didn’t give up.

Once they dared to believe,

“Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

The Cross was part of God’s plan it was not something he was forced to do.

He helped them understand that being willing to suffer, is part of love.

Jesus, the Messiah willingly suffered and died to bring us to redemption because he loved us.

Finally with the last line of the Gospel Jesus gave the apostles their mission.

“You are witnesses of these things”.

A witness is only a witness if he speaks, if he testifes.
A witness who says nothing is no witness at all.

And so you see holy one…

Today’s world like the Apostles gathered in that room is broken, disillusioned, and frightened.

Today’s Gospel should inspire us to have patience the same patience that Jesus showed to the Apostles.

Remember after all the time he spent with them he he still had to coax them to belief.

We must be patient

Patient with our friends
Patient with our families
Patient even with those who refuse to believe who remain incredulous.

I know its hard not to get fed up or give up when someone just won’t change
but that’s what the Gospel calls us to do.

Today’s Gospel should inspire, challenge us to sacrificial love, it should challenge us not only to face the cross but to willingly embrace it..

Only when we are willing to look beyond our own needs
only when we are willing to suffer, for someone else
can we dare to say that we are capable of loving.

To chose to love is also to be willing to suffer

Finally our one of our greatest failures is to accept our mission to be witnesses.

The message of the Gospel is meant for everyone
but
because.. we fail to live it credibly
Because we fail to speak
Because we fail to testify

Quite often we are very poor witnesses indeed.

If all of us on this campus who attend Mass lived our faith credibly what a different campus and a different world it would be indeed.

Amen