3rd Sunday of Easter May 4, 2025

In the  reading from the Acts of the Apostles we have the account of how the followers of Jesus could not stop speaking about Him. On the other hand, the Gospel recounts how they did not believe at first and were really reluctant to believe even when they encountered Him. Who could really believe that a dead man came back to life after being dead for those three days? Even today some writers want to try to explain away the Resurrection of Jesus. Some writers will claim that He was in a coma. Others will insist that the Resurrection was a mental phenomenon. It is just too difficult to believe that a person really died, was dead for a couple of days and then was raised to life again by some powerful force.

The challenge for each of us in the time of the Easter Season is to deepen our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Book of Revelation changes the perspective to the end of time, but we are not ready to do that yet. We are challenged to believe in the here and now. If we believe now, then our lives truly change. Perhaps they don’t change immediately but we know that Christ is always at our side, inviting us to change and to live in Him.

Jesus shows up in our lives in the most unexpected times and places. Sometimes when we feel completely caught in sin, we can sense His presence, inviting us to walk with Him. He does not at first even ask us to repent. He just invites us to walk with Him and to know Him. Sometimes when we can see no way out of a situation, we feel His presence. He does not fix our bad situation, but He walks with us and gives us the strength to keep on looking for a way to solve our problems.

To believe is a challenge for all of us. One of the best ways of believing is acting on a belief: let us walk with the Lord Jesus, let us serve others in love, let us deny ourselves so that others may have more, let us feed one another in love.                                                                          

      Fr. Terry.