We have reached the third Sunday of Easter Tide in our journeying with the Lord.
We see in the Gospel narration by St.Luke (24.13-35), the Risen Lord joining the company of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus who were walking in unbelief and despair. But they experienced something beautiful when the Risen Lord entered into their life: First as a stranger joining with them in their conversation and ‘breaking the Word of God’ to remove their doubts and despair; then He stayed with them, and after giving them the bread which was ‘blessed and broken’, He entered into their very being. (Lk 24.13-31).
Being set free from their doubt and despair, and illumined by the light, the Risen Lord shed into their heart, they were now able to see everything that happened in the past with a new meaning. The darkness of sorrow and despair gave way to joy and hope. This is true Inner Healing.
Only the Risen Jesus makes sense of everything that happened in the past. In His Word and in the breaking of the bread, the past is interpreted in the light of the great truth that Jesus is risen and He is the Lord Immanuel.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by the Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross: Christ is risen from the dead!” (638).
As St.Paul says: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Cor 15. 17). It is the Risen Lord who gives meaning to our life; sets us free from all sins, bondages and curses; heals us of all our brokenness. The more we experience the power of the Risen Lord, the deeper we experience the newness of life.
For example, a believer who suffers from fear from a past incident ( because that person did not experience the presence of the Lord, like the disciples on the way to Emmaus encountering the Risen Lord), when begins to imagine in faith, the Risen Lord present in His life, and surrenders his fear to him, renounces that fear and commands it in the name of Jesus ,to go away from his life, he experiences the love and power of the Lord. Then he can also walk with Jesus in faith imagining those situations again, and can realise that there is no more fear but courage to face any situation together with and in the presence of Jesus.
Lord Jesus, my Risen Saviour, I praise you and thank you for your presence in my life. ‘You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore’ (Ps 16.11)
Mary Pereira