Daily Reflection Wednesday in the Octave of Easter

In his resurrection Jesus is the victor over death! Our first reading today describes how Peter has been affected by Jesus’ miracle. Not only has he been forgiven, God has empowered him with the gift of healing others. And is that not what we experience during this Easter season: life, healing, forgiveness!

   Then we have Luke’s narrative of the couple leaving Jerusalem and traveling home to Emmaus. The couple do not recognize Jesus. They are so involved in their own thoughts and feelings of disappointment that their eyes and hearts are blind to seeing Jesus walking with them! He then proceeds to give the couple a brief history of salvation. Only after the invitation for Jesus to eat with them did they realize the presence of the Savior. Had they been too preoccupied to realize Jesus in their midst? Had they been so filled with their own emotional suffering that they could not recognize Jesus? So, what about each one of us? Do we allow ourselves to be immersed in God each day, so that we recognize when the Divine is speaking within us? Maybe we allow our own hearts and minds to wonder away from Jesus….  And what had we hoped for?

 We had hoped that this Jesus would be the savior of Israel, of the world……

    We had hoped that Jesus would bring about world peace….

    We had hoped that Jesus would end famine, war, and natural disasters…

    We had hoped that Jesus would cure all physical and psychological

                                                                                              Illnesses…

    We had hoped that Jesus would clear away our selfishness, vanity,

    greed for power in world leaders, gangs in our streets, drug lords…

    We had hoped that Jesus would extinguish physical, mental, and

                                                                                 emotional illnesses…

    Just as the Emmaus couple recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, let us acknowledge God in Eucharist, in our thoughts, our manner of speech, how we interact with one another. Then also realize our role in fleshing out all we had hoped for. Each single step we take in offering understanding, peace, and healing in our daily lives is a step closer to world peace and healing.

Listen to the song, “In the Breaking of the Bread”—Michael Ward