{"id":4984,"date":"2024-04-14T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T10:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=4984"},"modified":"2024-05-17T11:40:54","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T10:40:54","slug":"commentary-on-the-3rd-sunday-of-easter-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-the-3rd-sunday-of-easter-b\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on the 3rd Sunday of Easter (B) 14.04.2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie<\/a><\/h3>\n

Lk 24:35-48<\/b><\/p>\n

[The disciples] told what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.\u00a0 \u00a0While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”\u00a0 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.\u00a0 \u00a0He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?\u00a0 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.\u00a0 Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”\u00a0 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>
\nWhile in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”\u00a0 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.\u00a0 \u00a0Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you \u2013 that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”\u00a0 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.\u00a0 \u00a0You are witnesses of these things.<\/em><\/p>\n

The disciples thought they were seeing a ghost, and Jesus was at pains to assure them that he was no ghost, no projection.\u00a0 \u00a0Ghosts don\u2019t say, “Have you anything here to eat?” If Jesus is not truly risen he is only a ghost.\u00a0 \u00a0Ghosts are the past that didn\u2019t die properly.\u00a0 \u00a0If Jesus did not truly die he is not truly risen.\u00a0 \u00a0He had to die in the past so that he could be with us in the present, “the first-born from the dead.”\u00a0 We too have to die to the past if we are to meet him where he is.\u00a0 \u00a0“If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5).<\/p>\n

When we can find no security in the present we look for it in the past.\u00a0 \u00a0“The past at least is secure,” said some failed politician.\u00a0 \u00a0But while the past may give a feeling of security, it does not give security \u2013 because time is moving, not fixed.\u00a0 \u00a0Or we look for security in the future.\u00a0 \u00a0We are always looking for a railing to hold onto, because the ground under our feet is moving.\u00a0 \u00a0I always feel we would prefer an unresurrected Christ.\u00a0 \u00a0He would be fixed and immovable, altogether more stable.\u00a0 \u00a0We could own and control him.\u00a0 \u00a0But he is risen, he cannot be owned, he is the vehicle of the Spirit which blows where it wills.<\/p>\n

God “has restored the joy of our youth.”\u00a0 Joy is there when we put ourselves fully into something.\u00a0 \u00a0Small children, when they laugh, are all laughter; when they cry they are all sadness.\u00a0 \u00a0But a little later we learn to drag ourselves along: half-way into things and no more: half in and half out, hovering like ghosts.\u00a0 \u00a0If we walked like that we would resemble someone a hundred years old.\u00a0 \u00a0When we walk freely we put all<\/em> our weight on the forward foot; we entrust ourselves to the future and we leave the past behind.\u00a0 \u00a0Ghosts don\u2019t do that; they don\u2019t walk, they don\u2019t do anything.\u00a0 \u00a0We real human beings have to learn to go fully into everything we do and say and think, to \u2018die into\u2019 everything.\u00a0 \u00a0Then we will know something about resurrection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie Lk 24:35-48 [The disciples] told what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.\u00a0 \u00a0While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”\u00a0 They were startled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4985,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4984"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8200,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions\/8200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}