by Fr. Julius C. Lupot

READINGS:    Acts 3: 13-15. 17-19   /   Psalm 4: 2. 4. 7-8. 9   /   1 John 2: 1-5   /     LUKE 24: 35-48

HIS WORD… PEACE BE WITH YOU… THESE ARE THE WORDS THAT I SPOKE TO YOU WHILE I WAS WITH YOU, THAT EVERYTHING WRITTEN ABOUT ME IN THE LAW OF MOSES AND IN THE PROPHETS AND PSALMS MUST BE FULFILLED… YOU ARE WITNESSES OF THESE THINGS…

my words…We are now on the Third Sunday of Easter and we enter into the Third Week of Easter reflections on the “Bread of Life Discourse” of Jesus in the gospel of St. John, the whole of Chapter 6 which points to and speaks about the Holy Eucharist. But for today, our attentionsand reflections are brought to Jesus’ continued apparitions to His disciples in the Gospel of Luke. But the context is the same: the Holy Eucharist. And this happenedto the two seemingly hopeless disciples on their “walk way home” to Emmaus; but the Risen Lord “walks with them” discussing along the way the scriptures starting with Moses down to the Prophets explaining to them everything in scriptures about himself… (Lk 24:27). And at the end of their “walk”, they were able to recognize that it was the Lord when He was breaking the bread with them (Lk 24:31); = a Eucharistic gesture and experience.

Brothers and Sisters, the disciples’ experiences with the Risen Christ are repeated by us every time we celebrate Mass. Everything written about Jesus in the OLD TESTAMENT: the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms are fulfilled in the GOSPEL: the life story of Jesus. This is the reason why in listening to the Gospel we stand from the sitting position of listening to the First and Second Readings and the Psalms; because the Gospel contains the very WORD of Jesus, and the life story of Jesus who fulfilled all promises in the Old Testament literature. That is why we say, the Old Testament is the regime of “promises”, while the New Testament is the regime of “fulfillment” in Jesus of Nazareth. The First Part of the Mass is the experience of the WORD with the homily that should keep our hearts “burning”; and the Second Part of the Mass is the experience of the “breaking of the bread” that should make our eyes open to the presence of the Risen Lord in us especially in Holy Communion.

In today’s gospel, Jesus, the Risen Lord, repeated and recapitulated what happened along the road to Emmaus when He said, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Lk 24:44). Then Jesus again opened their minds to understand the scriptures (Lk 24:45)… and consequently asked them to be “witnesses of these things” (Lk 24:48) beginning from Jerusalem through Samaria to all the nations of the world.

Brothers and Sisters, this is the effect of the Holy Mass in us; at the end of the Mass, the Priest is practically sending us off recalling the original Latin dismissal formula of the Mass, “Ite Missa Est” which literally means, “Go, you have been sent” – meaning, after the Mass,we too are called and sent to be missionaries of the WORD. This beautiful Latin formula can also be freely interpreted as “you now go, your mission begins…”

LET US NOW GO… AND PROCLAIM HIS WORD… TO ALL THE WORLD…