Third Sunday of Easter (B), April 19, 2015 – Acts 3, 13-15. 17-19; 1 Jn 2, 1-5a; Lk 24, 35-48

We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ (1 Jn 2, 1)

The risen Jesus is the invitation to sinners to believe in the God who writes straight with crooked lines. Through Jesus, where sin increases, there grace overflows all the more.

The religious rulers keep realizing their plots just as they have them hatched up. They get to buy the Iscariot, to persuade the crowds to pressure Pontius Pilate to release Barabbas and hand Jesus over to death. Then they mock Jesus, underestimating the resiliency of the one who takes refuge in the Lord, and not in princes. God likes him so much he raises him to life.

God never disappoints those who trust in him. He sees to it that all things work for good for those who love him. He does not cease to surprise believers and unbelievers alike.

It is because of God that there is the proclamation about Adam’s happy fault and about the stone, rejected by the builders, becoming the cornerstone. God did not let the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites be for naught. Nor did he comply with the purist expectation that would prefer that Jesus’ genealogy be immaculate, without including men of questionable character and the women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. This same God does not let human depravity be the last word now.

And the Son himself, sold for thirty pieces of silver, does what Joseph did: he reassures us who are guilty and frightened, reminding us that everything has been fulfilled according to the prophecies. In effect, Jesus makes excuses for our offenses and invites us to repentance.

Indeed, every cloud has a silver lining. And St. Vincent de Paul assures us that God does not allow anything to happen without a reason (FrVII:287-288). But this does not mean all we have to do is stand by and watch.

With the ball now in our court, ours is the responsibility to let all our activity, “constantly imperiled by man’s pride and deranged self-love, … be purified and perfected by the power of Christ’s cross and resurrection” (Gaudium et Spes 37). Yes, the basic law of conversion and human perfection, and hence of the world’s transformation, is the new commandment of love (Ibid. 38).

Consequently, our attention is called to the Eucharist, the celebration par excellence of the Paschal Mystery. The Eucharist directs us in our weakness and misery not to the God who is deus ex machina, one who only fills the gaps, but rather to the suffering God, the only one who can help, winning power and space in the world by his weakness (Bonhoeffer).

Lord Jesus, you made the cross the tree of life, be our strength in our weakness.

Ross Reyes Dizon

READ THE SPANISH VERSION