Daily Reflection Wednesday within the Octave of Easter

  In our first reading today, Luke recounts Peter and John going up to the Temple for prayer. I am sure that Peter still feels the sting of denying his friendship with Jesus! Yet, Peter does not allow this sin to consume him, because he knows he has been forgiven. He lets go and surrenders himself to the unconditional love of God. In fact, Peter’s contrition and response to Jesus’ love transform him. We can be transformed in the same way. So, Peter continues his mission of teaching in the Temple. When asked for alms, he acknowledges his material poverty, but is generous with his spiritual gifts. He has been infused with the life of the Resurrection.



    Although Luke doesn’t expressly state it, I imagine that the two traveling back to their home in Emmaus are a married couple. Yes, they are confused and share their thoughts. The long-awaited Messiah had come, had proclaimed the Good News, had worked miracles of healing. Now he is dead, crucified by the Romans at the request of his own people. How did this happen?



    Jesus is somewhat of a therapist along this walk with the couple. He encourages them to verbalize their hopes, their fears, their disappointments. Jesus doesn’t fan their anger. He calmly explains biblical history. He shows that what has happened is an integral part of the woven history of God and humankind. Jesus is describing the real meaning of Easter, the Resurrection.



     In his poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland, the Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins, envisions how Jesus’ Resurrection infuses in us the Divine Spirit, “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us.” We can “easter” in one another by listening to each other without a cell phone, by paying attention to the emotional and spiritual needs of people. We can become “easter” people by encouraging life and hope in our interpersonal connections.



     In his autobiography, Hope, our late Pope Francis encouraged us, “We must not stumble upon tomorrow, we must build it, and we all have the responsibility to do so in a way that responds to the project of God, which is none other than the happiness of mankind, the centrality of mankind, without excluding anyone.” Isn’t this a message of Easter? Yes, “Let him easter in us!”