Understanding the Scriptures
Jesus in today’s Gospel, teaches His apostles how to interpret the Scriptures.
He tells them that all the Scriptures of what we now call the Old Testament refer to Him. He says that all the promises found in the Old Testament have been fulfilled in His passion, death, and resurrection.
And He tells them that these Scriptures foretell the mission of the Church—to preach forgiveness of sins to all the nations, beginning at Jersusalem.
In today’s First Reading and Epistle, we see the beginnings of that mission. And we see the apostles interpreting the Scriptures as Jesus taught them to.
God has brought to fulfillment what He announced beforehand in all the prophets, Peter preaches. His sermon is shot through with Old Testament images. He evokes Moses and the exodus, in which God revealed himself as the ancestral God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see Exodus 3:6,15). He identifies Jesus as Isaiah’s suffering servant who has been glorified (see Isaiah 52:13).
John, too describes Jesus in Old Testament terms. Alluding to how Israel’s priests offered blood sacrifices to atone for the people’s sins (see Leviticus 16; Hebrews 9-10), he says that Jesus intercedes for us before God (see Romans 8:34), and that His blood is a sacrificial expiation for the sins of the world (see 1 John 1:7).
Notice that in all three readings, the Scriptures are interpreted to serve and advance the Church’s mission—to reveal the truth about Jesus, to bring people to repentance, the wiping away of sins, and the perfection of their love for God.
This is how we, too, should hear the Scriptures. Not to know more “about” Jesus, but to truly know Him personally, and to know His plan for our lives.
In the Scriptures, the light of His face shines upon us, as we sing in today’s Psalm. We know the wonders He has done throughout history. And we have the confidence to call to Him, and to know that He hears and answers.
St. Gregory The Great
Homilies on The Gospels, 26
How was the Lord’s body, which could come in to the disciples through closed doors after the resurrection, a real one? We must be certain that if a divine work is understood by reason it is not wonderful, nor does our faith have any merit when human reason provides a proof.
We have to consider these works of our Redeemer, which can in no way be understood of themselves, in the light of other works of his, so that his more miraculous deeds may provoke faith in the miraculous. For the Lord’s body, which made its entrance to the disciples through closed doors, was the same as that which issued before the eyes of men from the Virgin’s closed womb at his birth. Is it surprising if he who was now going to live for ever made his entrance through closed doors after his resurrection, who on his coming in order to die made his appearance from the unopened womb of the Virgin?
But because the faith of those who beheld it wavered concerning the body they could see, he showed them at once his hands and his side offering them the body which he brought in through the closed doors to touch… Now, it cannot be otherwise then that what is touched is corruptible, and what is not corruptible cannot be touched.
But in a wonderful and incomprehensible way our Redeemer, after his resurrection, manifested a body that was incorruptible and touchable. By showing us that it is incorruptible he would urge us on toward our reward, and by offering it as touchable he would dispose us towards faith, He manifested himself as both incorruptible and touchable to truly show us that his body after his resurrection was of the same nature as ours but of a different sort of glory.
St. Augustine
Sermon 238
This Gospel passage… shows us in truth who is the Messiah and who the Church…, that we might understand well which Bride it is that this divine Bridegroom has chosen and who is the Bridegroom of this holy Bride… On this page we can read their deed of espousals…
You have learnt that Christ is the Word, God’s Utterance, united to a human soul and human body… Here, the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost; they did not believe that the Lord had a real body. But since the Lord understood the danger of such thoughts, he made haste to snatch them out of their hearts…: “Why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
Yet you, with these same crazy thoughts, strongly oppose the rule of faith you have received… Christ is truly the Word, the only-begotten Son equal to the Father, united to a truly human soul and a real body, clean of all sin. This is the body that died, the body that rose again, this body was fastened to the cross, this body laid in the tomb, this body is seated in the heavens.
Our Lord wished to persuade his disciples that what they were seeing was truly bone and flesh… Why did he want to convince me of this truth? Because he knew just how much it was to my own good to have faith in it and how much I had to lose if I did not. You too, then, have faith: it is he, the Bridegroom!
Now listen to what was said about the Bride…: “The Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, is to be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
This is the Bride…: the Church is spread all over the earth and has taken all peoples to her heart… The apostles saw Christ and believed in what they did not see, the Church. We, on our part, see the Church; so let us believe in Jesus Christ, whom we do not see, and so, by holding on to what we see, we shall come to him whom as yet we do not see.
Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli, April 22, 2012
Today, the Third Sunday of Easter, in the Gospel according to Luke we meet the Risen Jesus who presents himself to the disciples (cf. Lk 24:36) who, startled and incredulous, think they are seeing a ghost (cf. Lk 24:37).
Romano Guardini wrote: “the Lord has changed. He does not live as he lived previously. His existence cannot be understood. And yet it is corporeal, it encompasses… the whole of the life he lived, the destiny he passed through, his Passion and his death. Everything is reality. It may have changed but it is still tangible reality” (Il Signore. Meditazioni sulla persona e la vita di N.S. Gesù Cristo, Milan 1949, 433).
As the Resurrection did not erase the signs of the Crucifixion, Jesus showed the Apostles his hands and his feet. And to convince them, he even asked for something to eat, thus the disciples “gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them” (Lk 24:42-43).
St Gregory the Great comments that “the fish grilled on the flame means nothing other than the Passion of Jesus, Mediator between God and men. Indeed, he deigned to conceal himself in the waters of the human race, he accepted to be caught in the net of our death and was placed on the fire, symbolizing the pain he suffered at the moment of the Passion” (Hom. in Evang. XXIV, 5: CCL l 141, Turnhout 1999, 201).
It was by means of these very realistic signs that the disciples overcame their initial doubt and opened themselves to the gift of faith; and this faith enabled them to understand what was written on Christ “in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms (Lk 24:44). Indeed we read that Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations…. You are witnesses of these things” (Lk 24:45-48).
The Saviour assures us of his real presence among us through the Word and through the Eucharist. Therefore just as the disciples of Emmaus recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread (cf. Lk 24:35), so we too encounter the Lord in the Eucharistic celebration. In this regard St Thomas Aquinas explains that “it is absolutely necessary to confess according to the Catholic faith that the entire Christ is in this sacrament… since the Godhead never set aside the assumed body” (Summa Theologiae III, q. 76, a. 1).
Dear friends, it is usual in the Easter season for the Church to administer First Communion to children. I therefore urge parish priests, parents and catechists to prepare well for this feast of faith with great fervour, but also with moderation.
“This day continues to be memorable as the moment when… they first came to understand the importance of a personal encounter with Jesus” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 19). May the Mother of God help us to listen attentively to the Word of the Lord and to take part worthily in the Banquet of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, to become witnesses of the new humanity.
Pope Benedict XVI
Regina Caeli, April 30, 2006
In the Easter Season the liturgy offers us manifold incentives to strengthen our faith in the Risen Christ. Today, on the Third Sunday of Easter, for example, St Luke tells how the two disciples of Emmaus, after recognizing him “in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24: 35), returned to Jerusalem full of joy to tell the others what had happened to them.
And just as they were speaking, the Lord appeared, showing them his hands and his feet with the signs of the Passion. Then, in the face of the Apostles’ disbelief and wonder, Jesus had them give him some broiled fish and ate it before their eyes (cf. Lk 24: 35-43).
In this and in other accounts, one can discern a repeated invitation to overcome incredulity and believe in Christ’s Resurrection, since his disciples are called to be witnesses precisely of this extraordinary event.
The Resurrection of Christ is central to Christianity. It is a fundamental truth to be reasserted vigorously in every epoch, since to deny it, as has been, and continues to be attempted, or to transform it into a purely spiritual event, is to thwart our very faith. St Paul states: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (I Cor 15: 14).
In the days that followed the Lord’s Resurrection, the Apostles stayed together, comforted by Mary’s presence, and after the Ascension they persevered with her in prayerful expectation of Pentecost. Our Lady was a mother and teacher to them, a role that she continues to play for Christians of all times.
Every year, at Eastertide, we relive this experience more intensely and perhaps, precisely for this reason, popular tradition has dedicated to Mary the month of May that normally falls between Easter and Pentecost. Consequently, this month which we begin tomorrow helps us to rediscover the maternal role that she plays in our lives so that we may always be docile disciples and courageous witnesses of the Risen Lord.
Let us entrust to Mary the needs of the Church and of the whole world, especially at this time which is marked by so many shadows. As we also invoke the intercession of St Joseph whom we will commemorate tomorrow in a special way, thinking of the world of work, we turn to her with the prayer of the Regina Caeli, a prayer that enables us to taste the comforting joy of the Risen Christ’s presence.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria
Commentary on Saint John’s Gospel, Bk 12; PG 74, 704
“Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself”
By his miraculous entry through closed doors Christ proved to his disciples that by nature he was God and also that he was none other than their former companion. By showing them his side and the marks of the nails, he convinced them beyond a doubt that he had raised the temple his body, the very body that had hung upon the cross (cf Jn 2:19). He had destroyed death’s power over the flesh, for as God, he was life itself…
We have only to recall Christ’s transfiguration on the mountain in the presence of his holy disciples (Mt 17:1f.), to realize that mortal eyes could not have endured the glory of his sacred body had he chosen to reveal it before ascending to the Father… And so, before allowing the glory that belonged to it by every right to transfigure the temple of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ in his wisdom appeared to his disciples in the form that they had known. He wished them to believe that he had risen from the dead in the very body that he had received from the blessed Virgin, and in which he had suffered crucifixion and death, as the Scriptures had foretold…
When Christ greeted his holy disciples with the words: “Peace be with you,” by peace he meant himself, for Christ’s presence always brings tranquility of soul. This is the grace Saint Paul desired for believers when he wrote: The ”peace of Christ, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds.” (Phil 4:7) The peace of Christ which passes all understanding, that Saint Paul wrote about, is in fact the Spirit of Christ, who fills all those who share in him with every blessing.
