1. A favourite Gospel passage I treasure is read at Eastertide. It is from Luke, and in it we read of Jesus, risen and alive, accompanying his two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

    I like it because it invites me to keep re-discovering the risen Jesus amidst the turmoil that daily life can sometimes be. This is an important lesson especially when I am bogged down by life’s burdens and distractions that sometimes make me forget that Jesus is already there for and with me.

    But there is something more beautiful and instructive in this passage.

    Cleopas and his friend recognized Jesus at the moment he broke bread with them. This moment gave them life again; it nourished them as believers. Through action and word, Jesus made whole again what was once broken for and lost to his disciples through death: the continuing friendship with him, who is truly risen and alive.

    For Luke, this moment is Eucharistic. Jesus’ presence is revealed not only in his act of thanksgiving and breaking bread but in the healing these brokenhearted disciples experienced. In the company of the risen Christ, their earthly lives took on a new meaning; awakened from their darkness, their lives were renewed in the light of Christ. Indeed, Jesus’ promise, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them,” was fully expressed in the new found appreciation they had of themselves: they truly were disciples of Jesus, the Risen Christ.

    If we can recognize in the above that the Eucharist heals, then, we can begin to admit that we, who gather for Mass, are a broken but hopeful people. We are broken because of sin but hopeful because of faith. We are pained by our brokenness yet we believe we can be healed because Jesus is present with and among us. To embrace this truth is to reclaim our identity as Christian.

    When we acknowledge this we can re-appreciate our gatherings at Mass as a return to that commonwealth we too share with Cleopas and his friend at Emmaus--the gift of being in Jesus’ good company.

    And in his good company, Jesus asks us to always see each other anew, with love and compassion. This is especially needed when a community is sometimes divided by petty jealousies, small mindedness and disdainful pride and where refutation persists and dialogue is abysmally absent. At Mass, those of us who make up this community are challenged to recognize how alike each other we really are, frail and weak, yet called into communion with Jesus and with one another. Gathered around the altar, we are honestly no different. We are all God’s children. To come to Mass then as a worshipping community that is painfully fractured is grace. Each time we do this in our brokenness, we do nothing less than to stand before our God and each other and humbly confess our communal need for reconciliation, healing and peace.

    Perhaps this is the message some of us and some of our communities need to hear at this time. The Eucharistic moment at Emmaus offers itself as a contemplation of what we ought to focus on in times of misunderstanding, darkness and despair.

    And in that moment we admit that the healing Jesus bestowed upon his two disciples is also balm for our fragmented communities, we too will run like them back to the very place of pain, confusion and dismay, Jerusalem, our Jerusalems, to preach to our sisters and brothers that Jesus has risen, he is with us and he will heal us by transfiguring our communities again!

    Indeed, isn't the good news of Emmaus worth sharing with someone or some community that is broken and in pain today?



    painting: road to emmaus, amercian, 18th century

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  2. Each morning seeds the anticipation of a happy day ahead. Each new born parents bring into the world bears the promised difference their child will make in life. And with each birthday we awake to, don’t we look ahead with hope to the good and happy life renewed?

    Easter promises us new life too. On Easter morning, we celebrate the gift of our promised eternal life with God. Jesus’ death and resurrection gains this for all humankind. But our Easter joy is not only to be awaited for; it is to be celebrated in the here and now. Our faith invites us to live the promised reality of life with God today. This is the inexpressible delight of Jesus’ disciples upon learning that he is alive with them. It is our delight too because we are an Easter people: we have already been redeemed from sin and death, and we are called into friendship with God, again and always.

    But there is a catch to this happy truth: the promised life with God that is the Easter message for our daily living depends on how much you and I want to embrace and make it a living reality for ourselves and others.

    Throughout Lent, we have responded to Jesus’ call for conversion; we have tried to align our frail human ways to living better Jesus’ life of pray, renunciation and charity. At Easter, all our lenten efforts help us to rise to new life in Jesus. In these weeks of Eastertide and beyond, I believe the invitation is to take stock of this renewed living we begin once again: how am I living out the life Easter promises me today?

    However, when we each look at our lives, every now and then since Easter, don’t we see with dismay those moments when we didn't really embrace the Easter truth and live it well, good and happily? In those moments, there is perhaps a heady recognition of the Easter truth and lukewarm attempts to live it out in word and deed. With these, there is more honestly emptiness, a hollowness that doesn’t ring true of who we are, an Easter people.

    Indeed, what could be missing in those times is our loving and total embrace of Jesus’ gift of new life. The latter is never easy to do because of human selfishness. But to refuse Jesus’ gift is to abort it. In these times, our ingratitude blinds us to the wonder this gift is.

    Yet, the message of Easter continues to ring true daily, and, more so, in those moments: Jesus forgives and loves us because his deepest longing is to be our friend.

    We see this in today’s Gospel reading where Jesus feeds the many people abundantly. Multiplying five fish and two loaves into a feast, Jesus wants nothing less than our happiness and wellbeing, both on earth and in heaven. Jesus’ death and resurrection promises us a place at the table of plenty he prepares for all. But it is how we choose to live life as an Easter people that determines how we will partake of this feast.

    Should we not pay heed, then -- not in fear but in wondrous anticipation -- to our efforts to make real what has already began this Easter, our coming, once again, to Jesus and feasting with him?





    photo: the hanging garden by irenaS

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"Bukas Palad"
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"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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