Tag Archives: Gospel of Luke

20th Sunday C: Speaking Truth

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To listen to today’s homily, please select the audio file below:

Our first reading this Sunday is from the prophet Jeremiah, a lonely prophet–some might say a dreary prophet. He had the misfortune of living  at a time when people were unquestioning about the prevailing wisdom of their day.

The ruling king in Judea was smart and popular; his advisors unanimously backed him, his army was loyal and public opinion was on his side– almost 99%.  Except for Jeremiah, who spoke against his policies, questioned his advisors, scolded his soldiers and predicted the destruction ofJerusalem.

What do you do with someone like that? They decided to bury Jeremiah in a deep cistern where no one could hear him and eventually he would die. He was only saved because someone said he shouldn’t die, his voice should be heard.

Well, shortly afterwards, in 586 BC, the Babylonians came into Judea, leveled Jerusalem to the ground and carried away most of its population as slaves to Babylon– as Jeremiah had predicted.

Jeremiah wasn’t fanatical, a fanatic doesn’t question himself. He was a realist, a man who believed in God and saw things as they are.  In the book that bears his name, he repeatedly questions himself and worries about what people were saying. He wants to be accepted – like us all. He complains to God about being a prophet but realizes a prophet has to speak, even if he’s out-of-step with the prevailing wisdom of his day.

Listen to Jesus in the gospel today. You can hear the prophet Jeremiah. Jesus brings fire to the earth. Fire can bring light and warmth, but fire can also drive away. Faith can bring people together, but it can also bring separation, even dividing families. It can bring loneliness and unacceptance, especially when it challenges the prevailing wisdom of the day.   

How does faith clash with our prevailing wisdom today? For one thing, it can clash with our prevailing concept of happiness. Our prevailing wisdom says we have a right to perfect human happiness, here and now, you, me, everybody.  We have a right to perfect health, a perfect body, a perfect mind, a perfect life.

Utopia is right around the corner, in the laboratory waiting to be discovered, in political platforms waiting to implemented. Never mind a heaven above, we want a heaven on earth. A world where there’s no sickness, no sorrow, or death. Heaven on earth.

So we tell the drug companies and our medical establishment – “Give us bodies that will dance every day and minds that will never fail. Take loneliness away from us, help us live on a high. Give us eternal youth, give us life-long sexual pleasure, give us perfect health and a lot of wealth. 

So we tell our leaders and politicians to promise us everything under the sun and then get it done right away.

But does happiness, complete happiness come right away? Yes, we pray that God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. But it will come on God’s time, not ours. It will be God’s kingdom, not ours. To trust in ourselves or in human promises and progress brings disappointment and even hopelessness.

We need to listen to prophets like Jeremiah and the warnings of Jesus. We have to recognize the incompleteness of the world we live in and to trust in the fire that never goes out.

That’s the wisdom we hear in an old song, which you don’t hear sung too much any more.

“I’m just a poor, warfarin stranger, traveling through this world of woe. There’s no sickness, no toil or sorrow, in that dear land to which I go.”

Jeremiah could have sung that song.

13th Sunday C: On the Journey

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To listen to today’s homily, please select the audio file below:

We’re reading the Gospel of Luke the Sundays of this year. At the beginning of his gospel, St.Luke promises to put down in an orderly way the events that have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. As we listen to his account he wants us to realize that what we hear Jesus say to his disciples and to others he says to us. When we hear what happens to Jesus we are also hearing what happens to us.

In the 9th chapter of his gospel, part of which we read this Sunday, Luke describes a crucial turning point in the life of Jesus. After teaching and healing and performing wonders for a time in Galilee, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” Then, he asks them, “Who do you say I am?” Of course, Luke wants us to face that same question too. “Who do we say Jesus is?”

Jesus then announces he must go up to Jerusalem. Listen to the way Luke describes his decision “When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him.” This is a journey when the days for Jesus being taken up were fulfilled. In other words, this is a journey when Jesus will pass from this world to his Father. He is journeying to Jerusalem to suffer and die and rise again. He will be “taken up.”

And he doesn’t make this journey alone. At this point in the gospel, Jesus calls his disciples to follow him, Luke says, but the evangelist wants us know that he’s calling everybody to follow him, not just a designated few. Greater than Elijah, Jesus gives his mantle to many followers who’ll share his journey and they’re taken up with him to share his reward, and he sends messengers ahead of him to gather as many as they can.

There’s a simple criteria Jesus gives for following him. “Take up your cross daily and follow me,” he says in Luke’s gospel. It’s an everyday cross he wants us to take up, not the cross of wood that he himself bore; it’s not nails in our hands and feet or scourges on our back that we’re asked to bear. It’s the everyday cross that we carry all the time, wherever we are. It’s the cross we carry on our journey of life, all our life. Sometimes it comes from ourselves, from sickness, or old age, or disappointments, or worry, or the constant pressures of living everyday. Sometimes it comes from the world we live in with its violence and uncertainties. It’s always there and Jesus tells us to carry it.

In today’s gospel the Lord says something more about following him; some of what he says we may find hard to understand. For example, what does he say to the man who wants to bury his father before following him? “Let the dead bury their dead.” What does he say to the one who wants to say goodbye to his family first? “ “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what’s left behind is fit for the kingdom of heaven.” Sounds hard and unreasonable, doesn’t it?

Hard and unreasonable, until we see how important it is to follow Jesus. If life is a journey, and it is, where are we going? Do we think this is all there is? If life is a journey, do we make it alone? If life is a journey, does it stop at death? If it doesn’t stop at death, who will take us beyond it? If life is a journey from this world to another world, who will be with us all days to bring us to that world?

We can see how important it is to follow Jesus Christ?

Some, of course, think he makes no difference. They can go it alone. Some think Christ is just a “back-up,” when you need him he’ll be there. Some think he brings power and success for living here and now. But look at what he says in today’s gospel: “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Jesus doesn’t assure us of a nice house or a good living. In today’s gospel, too, his disciples want to set fire on the Samaritans who refuse them hospitality, but Jesus turns his back on them.

For the next four months our Sunday gospels are mostly from the journey narrative of Luke. We will be hearing what Jesus says to those he meets on the journey. Let’s listen as if he’s speaking to us. On the way to Jerusalem Jesus calls followers. None of them are perfect, by any means. In Luke’s narrative it’s the lost sheep, the prodigal children, the forgotten poor, a blind man on the road, a crooked tax collector who follow him. He calls us too. Let’s listen to him.

We’ll hear warnings in the weeks ahead which we should take to heart. “You are a fool,” God says to the man who thinks only about building bigger barns. Let’s listen to him. We’ll hear about stopping and helping others, as the Good Samaritan did. Let’s listen to him.

Palm Sunday: The Passion from Luke’s Gospel

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Palm Sunday this year we read St. Luke’s passion narrative, which sees Jesus’ death and resurrection as the culmination of his earthly journey. From Galilee, Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, to his death on Calvary, his resurrection and finally he ascends into heaven. It’s more than a journey to death, Jesus rises and is welcomed into heaven.

He does not journey alone. In Luke’s gospel, from Galilee to Jerusalem Jesus gathers disciples to accompany him. He does not face death alone–  disciples are with him, though he’s abandoned by twelve of them in the Garden of Gethsemane. Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the fields, takes up his cross and carries it behind him. Simon is a symbol of humanity, along with the ” large crowd of people” including “many women who mourned and lamented him,” Though unaware, disciples are with Jesus on the way.

Jesus says to all in Luke’s gospel, “ If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.’”(Luke 9,23-24} Simon represents all the followers of Jesus who go with him on his journey. It’s not only the cross of Jesus Simon carries, it’s “his cross,” his daily cross, his own cross.

Jesus’ words in Luke’s gospel to the women “who mourned and lamented him” are puzzling. Some say he comforts them as he goes to his death. Others say his words are a prophetic announcement of the judgment that inevitably follows injustice. Jerusalem will be destroyed as a consequence. Every unjust act, every sin has consequences that cannot be waived away.

Two criminals accompany Jesus to Calvary, the place of execution just outside the city gates where many people passed. For the Romans it was the perfect place to display their fierce justice. Jesus would die at this hellish place of torture and death, not a place one wished to be or to see.

Yet Luke, like the other evangelists, sees light in this place of death. Instead of harsh justice, suffering and death, God’s mercy and new life are revealed here: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

God’ mercy is revealed here to a criminal crucified with Jesus. Another criminal mocks him from his  cross. “Are you not the Messiah. Save yourself and us.” But his companion rebukes him and turns to Jesus with a plea to be remembered. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

More than a remembrance, Jesus promises to take him with him on his journey to God. “Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” As he does so often in Luke’s gospel,  Jesus reaches in tender mercy to one without hope.

Like Simon of Cyrene, the thief represents humanity. He’s been promised life and safe passage through the mystery of death. He dies with Jesus. The thief reminds us that eternal life is never denied to anyone.

The thief is a sign for us all. We die, but we die with the Lord. The best place for us to understand the mystery of death is on Calvary.

4th Sunday of Lent C: The Prodigal Son

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To listen to today’s homily, please select the audio bar below.

The story of the prodigal son is one of the longest in the gospel and it’s also one of the most important. It’s not just about a boy who goes astray, of course, it’s about the human race gone wrong.

“Give me what’s mine,” the son says boldly to his father. We all tend to say that. And he takes off for a faraway country, a permissive paradise that promises power and pleasure, in fact, it promises him everything, where he can do anything he wants.

But they’re empty promises, and soon the boy who had so much has nothing and ends up in a pigsty feeding pigs, who eat better than he does.

Then, he takes his first step back. He “comes to himself,” our story says; he realizes what he has done. “I have sinned.”

How straightforward his reaction! Not blaming anybody else for the mess he is in: not his father, or the prostitutes he spent so much of his money on, or society that fooled him. No, he takes responsibility. That “coming to himself” was the first gift of God’s mercy.

He doesn’t wallow in his sin and what it’s brought him, either. He doesn’t let it trap him. He looks beyond it to the place where he belongs, to his father’s house. It wont be an easy road, but he keeps his eyes on it and starts back home.

There he’s surprised by the welcome he receives. More than he ever expected. The father takes into his arms and calls for feast.

His story is our story too.

In these days of Lent, many of us approach the sacrament of reconciliation.  That sacrament is very much like the journey the son takes back to his father. First of all, we look for the mercy of God to come to ourselves, to know our sins and to look for our place in our Father’s house.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. we say beginning our confession. The prayer of the son has become our prayer. We acknowledge our sins.

Then the priest who represents Jesus, who speaks for his Father in heaven, says.

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of our sins.

Through the ministry of the church, may God grant you pardon and peace, and I absolve you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We receive pardon and peace, the gift of God’s mercy.

How easily we leave your side,

Lord God,

for a place far away.

Send light into our darkness,

and open our eyes to our sins.

Unless you give us new hearts and strong spirits,

we cannot make the journey home,

to your welcoming arms and the music and the dancing.

Father of mercies and giver of all gifts,

guide us home

and lead us back to you.

The Passion of Jesus

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sacred heart mission

This evening at our mission at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Raleigh, North  Carolina, I recommended reading the gospels for the rich spirituality each of them offers.

Tonight we read St Luke’s passion narrative, the focal point of his gospel. All the narratives  before it, from the infancy narrative, to the accounts of Jesus’ baptism, his initial mission in Galilee, and his journey to Jerusalem lead to his passion, death and resurrection.

Jesus does not journey alone, nor does he suffer and die and rise again alone. He does not enter paradise alone.  From Galilee to Jerusalem followers join him, interesting followers, like Zacchaeus the publican and the blind man on the Jericho road whom some might find questionable followers. Jesus embraces them.

In Luke’s gospel the mercy of Jesus seems to increase as he journeys to Calvary and his death on the Cross. He does not turn his face away from Peter who denies him. He reaches out to those who crucify him: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Calvary, a place of death, becomes a shining place of mercy. A thief who simply asks for remembrance is promised paradise. “Today, you will be with me in paradise.

The thief finds a companion in death. He does not die alone or without hope. Reading Luke’s gospel we hear this same promise made to us. The thief is sinful humanity.

Christ, the King

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Luke’s gospel for the Feast of Christ the King presents Jesus, not in a royal palace, but on a dark desolate hill. He’s not surrounded by cheering crowds, but by people cursing his name. He has no crown of gold, but a crown of thorns. His robe lies torn from him, heaped on the ground soaked in his blood. His throne is a cross, and over the cross is the inscription: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

We are tempted to see not power but failure here. But listen to the gospel. One of the criminals calls out to the wretched figure hanging next to him: “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” And power goes out from him. “This day you will be with me in paradise.

The thief is an interesting figure in the gospel. He has no name, nothing is known of his life or his crime. There he is, desperate, thinking all is gone. Powerless, no one would take a chance on him. Who would bother with him? Who would come close to him? Only a God who in the person of Jesus Christ would come so low as to share a cross with him.

The thief has no name. Christian tradition says he bears everyone’s name. In the thief we see ourselves, our desperate, poor, powerless selves. Yes, that is how much Christ loves us. He will always be close to us.

Lord of the Sabbath

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Jesus and his opponents often clash over the Sabbath, as they do in today’s reading from Luke’s gospel.(Luke 6,1-5) Jesus’ disciples take some grain as they walk through the fields in Galilee. “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” some Pharisees ask. All four gospels cite incidents like this. The question of the Sabbath was raised repeatedly in Jesus’ ministry.

We may think the question is about a Jewish law, but it’s really about God. How would God act if someone was hungry, or thirsty, or in need? That’s not a bad question to ask ourselves as we look out into our world. What would God do for the people we see in need? How would God look at those who belong to a different race or culture or nationality than we do? How would God act towards those who harm others or live unjust lives?

The Sabbath is God’s day, a day to remember who he is and what he has done. It’s not a day that restricts how we live, but a day that expands our vision to God’s vision. It’s a day to help us live other days of our lives. On the Sabbath, God gives us hope.

No wonder Jesus spoke of himself as “Lord of the Sabbath,” for he reveals the God we want to know. Too bad so many think of him as someone who restricts the way we live. It’s just the opposite. He teaches how live and offers a hope beyond any we could conceive.

No Nest, No Den

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We’re reading from the 9th chapter of Luke’s gospel this Sunday. (Luke 8,51-62) Jesus has completed his mission in Galilee, in the small towns around the lake, and sets out for Jerusalem. That’s how today’s gospel begins:

“When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled,
he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.”

Luke doesn’t describe a journey from place to place. Rather, Jesus gathers disciples on the way. He’s not making this journey alone, or just with the twelve. He’s calling many others to experience with him the mystery of his death and resurrection.

It’s a hard call. You have to go through tough places, Jesus says, like the Samaritan town that he and his disciples passed through, where you’re not accepted. You may not feel powerful or secure. If you follow me, Jesus says, you won’t have nests like the birds or dens like the fox. You’ll meet circumstances and difficult situations that may seem unreasonable.

But don’t worry, by following Jesus you’ll made the journey.

Last week I had some visitors from Australia and I took them on a tour of downtown New York, to visit a saint who once lived on Wall Street. She’s St. Elizabeth Seton, Mother Seton; she lived with her family on Wall Street and a number of other places downtown in colonial times. One of the last places she lived in New York City is on State Street, right across from the Staten Island Ferry. A church honoring her is built over that house.
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She’s a good example of what it means to follow Jesus, according to today’s gospel.
1.Elizabeth Seton 1797

I took my visitors on the Staten Island Ferry to show them where the quarantine stations were in the harbor. Mother Seton’s father, Doctor Richard Bayley, was New York City’s first health officer and his job was to isolate and care for people with diseases like yellow fever who were coming into the country on ships from overseas.
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In the summer of 1801, his daughter described the conditions at the quarantine station at Tomkinsville, Staten Island, where she was staying with her father. A boatload of Irish immigrants with yellow fever had just been taken off a ship:
“I cannot sleep–the dying and the dead possess my mind. Babies perishing at the empty breast of the expiring mother…Father says such was never known before: twelve children must die for want of sustenance…parents deprived of it as they have lain for many days ill in a ship without food or air or changing…There are tents pitched over the yard of the convalescent house and a large one at the death house.” (Letter July 28, 1801) Her father contacted yellow fever himself then and died shortly afterwards.

Through her life, Mother Seton experienced hard things like that. She was four years old when her mother died, and her father quickly remarried. Her stepmother never had much time for her, but neither did her father, a good man absorbed in his work as a doctor and away a lot.

She describes how lonely she was as a child. What kept her going was looking up into the clouds and believing that God was her father and he loved her.

Her fortunes changed dramatically when as a young woman Elizabeth Bayley met William Seton, one of the wealthiest young men in New York. They got married and had children and became part of New York’s high society. Alexander Hamilton was a neighbor, George Washington lived down the street. They were on top of the world and blissfully happy.
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William Seton was one of the venture capitalists of his day. He was into banking and shipping. But as we know venture capitalists can go bankrupt as well as make millions. That’s what happened to the Setons. They went bankrupt, he died of sickness and his wife became a widow with five kids.

Elizabeth Seton went through a spiritual crisis. She was attracted to the Catholic faith, but the Catholic Church then was looked down on by New Yorkers. She lost most of her friends when she decided to become a Catholic. She had to leave New York and go to Maryland where she began a school and a religious community of women, the Sisters of Charity.
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Her school was the beginning of Catholic Parochial School system in the United States and she’s honored as our first native born American saint. In the new United States Catholic Catechism for Adults she’s presented as an example of how our search for God takes place. Sometimes we’re on top of the world, other times we’re like birds without nests and foxes without dens.

Sometimes we may think that the gospel is an old book about things from long ago. But if you look at it with yourself in mind you can see how it applies. There are times when our lives are transfigured, as the lives of the disciples were when Jesus took them up the mountain. At other times we are not sure where we are. Sometimes we can feel like we’re going through a Samaritan town where nothing makes sense. To follow Jesus is like that.

Saints like Elizabeth Seton are good guides too. Take a look at them. They’re better guides to life than movie celebrities, and more real.

The Sinful Woman

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Sinful woman
We’ve been reading from the Gospel of Luke most Sundays at Mass this year and for the last few weeks Luke speaks about women in the ministry of Jesus and of his church. Last Sunday there was the story of the widow of Naim, who was bringing her dead son to be buried. Jesus stopped the funeral cortege raised the boy to life and gave him back to his mother.(Luke7.11-17) This week there’s the story of the sinful woman of the town in a Pharisee’s house. Weeping, she pours an ointment over Jesus’ feet along with her tears. Then she dries them with her hair.(Luke 7,36-8,3)

Recall too the story from last Sunday’s Old Testament readings about a widow whose only son had died. Elijah raised her boy to life. (1 Kings 17,17-24)

Are these stories related? I think they may be. In Jesus’ day women who were widowed were especially vulnerable. Losing their husbands, they lost their support. If they lost their sons their plight was worse. In a society where men were the sole providers, women had nothing without them. It could happen in such a situation that women sold themselves, which leads us to the story for today. Was the woman in the gospel one of those women?

It’s a situation that exists even in our time. “Doesn’t he know what kind of woman she is?” Jesus’ host asks. Yes, he does. He understands her circumstances quite well. Luke’s gospel especially takes up their cause.

You notice how the gospel ends today with Luke’s summary of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.

Accompanying him were the Twelve
and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities,
Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza,
Susanna, and many others who provided for them
out of their resources. (Luke 8,1-3)

Luke carefully notes that women followed Jesus. He had empowered them; then they empowered him and his gospel. That’s the way love and forgiveness works. Luke reminds the men of his church that women had an important place in the life and ministry of Jesus. For him women’s issues were not just women’s issues, they were men’s issues as well.

Today is Fathers’ Day. As we honor fathers, let’s remember that the scriptures expand the definition of father beyond biological terms. God is “Our Father in heaven”, “Father of the poor”, “Father of the widow”, “Father of orphans.” He the God of the vulnerable. Luke embraces this expanded understanding of mother and father in his gospel. Let’s make it our own too.

The Resurrection of Jesus

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We’re concluding our parish mission in Shelter Island, NY, today with some reflections on the Resurrection of Jesus.

People today wonder about life after death. That’s because we want to live. We wonder about ourselves, first of all. Do we live after we die? A couple of books on the subject are popular these days: one by a scientist who claims he’s come back from death, the other is an account of a little boy who supposedly died and went to heaven and come back to life. Both are best sellers.

Our questions about life beyond this one also surface in  popular culture; the media is big into life in space and dark alien forces that invade our ordinary world. Must be life out there, but it looks scary, according to the media.

As Catholics we believe this world is connected to a world beyond. We believe in “the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” Big beliefs. We believe there are tangible signs of our connection with this world, for example, apparitions of the Blessed Mother at Lourdes and Fatima.

Besides wondering about ourselves, we wonder too about our universe. Will it go on forever?

A couple of years ago I followed Harold Camping on television, who predicted the end of the world was coming on May 21, 2011 at 6 PM. The world was going to explode in fire, he said, destroying everything and everyone except those who read the bible; he didn’t have much hope for the world or most of the people in it.

A lot of people wondered if his crazy calculations were accurate. They weren’t. The world is still here and most of us are too, but at a time when many have lost confidence in our institutions, including our churches, people listened to him.

We  believe in Jesus Christ, who came into our world to teach, heal and offer the promise of eternal life. His death and resurrection answer our questions about death and life beyond this one; he also offers hope for our created world.

“On the third day, he rose from the dead,” we say in our creed. At first, his startled disciples spoke of their experience of Jesus risen from the dead in short statements like that, because his risen presence was unlike anything they had experienced before or knew from the past. They knew he was real, but his new existence was something they could hardly put into words. Their initial confusion is evident in the New Testament.

Jesus did not come from the tomb the same as he was before. He was not like Lazarus who came from the tomb and was easily recognized by all as he rejoined his sisters and went back to his own home in Bethany and took up his daily routine. Lazarus would die again.

Risen from the dead Jesus would not die again. He did not a return to the normal biological life he had before, but entered a new level of being; he experienced an evolutionary change that not only enhanced his humanity but ours too. Death would not affect him. He was changed, yet his love and care for his own in this world remained.

The Resurrection of Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI wrote, is “an historical event that nevertheless bursts open the dimensions of history and transcends it. Perhaps we may draw upon analogical language here, inadequate in many ways, yet still able to open a path towards understanding…we could regard the Resurrection as something akin to a radical ‘evolutionary leap,’ in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension in human existence.”

Pope Benedict’s book, Jesus of Nazareth, is a good source for understanding the mystery of the Risen Jesus.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are later statements about the resurrection of Jesus meant for particular churches and situations, so we should read them with their world in mind. Each gospel offers its own unique insight into mysteries of Jesus.

At our mission today we read from Luke’s account of the resurrection of Jesus, which centers on the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Like the other gospels, Luke begins with the women at the tomb on Easter morning, but they don’t find  Jesus at the tomb. The Lord enters the world at large to share his risen life with his disciples and all creation.

In his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, Luke sees God’s plan of salvation realized in Jesus who brings God’s salvation to all humanity through his church as it goes out from Jerusalem to Rome, then considered the center of the world.

The two disciples on their way to Emmaus represent the church on it’s journey through time,  one of the themes of Luke’s gospel.  As he did with the two disciples, the Risen Lord walks with his church on its mission through the ages.

Not an easy journey. Like the journey of the two disciples, it’s no triumphant march. Disillusionment, questions and gradual enlightenment are part of their journey. If the Risen Lord were not with them, they would continue in  hopelessness. The church ends up hopeless too, if Jesus were not with her.

Like the two disciples we find the Risen Christ slowly in the scriptures and in the breaking of the bread. Like them, he makes our hearts burn within. He is always with us.

The resurrection narrative from Luke is a good corrective to a triumphalist view that sees the church as perfect. It isn’t. It’s also a good corrective to a perfectionistic view of ourselves. We aren’t.

Like the two disciples, we have questions and  disappointments, but the Risen Christ walks with us. He engages  our questions and helps us understand, slowly. He is present in the breaking of the bread, the Holy Eucharist. We don’t see him; the Risen Lord has vanished from our sight, but he’s with us, guiding us to his kingdom.

Jesus also brings all creation into the mystery of the resurrection. “He took flesh and now retains his humanity forever, he who has opened up within God a space for humanity, now calls the whole world into this open space in God, so that in the end God may be all in all and the Son may hand over to the Father the whole world that is gathered together in him. (cf. 1 Cor 15,20-28) (Benedict XVI)

Harold Camping didn’t understand this.