Third Sunday of Easter – Cycle B
Reflecting on Lk. 24: 35-48
The Lebanese-American writer Kahlil Gibran had it right, I think, when he spoke of grief. He described death as an incense bead which doesn’t break open until a loved one’s death. Then its perfume fills the room. “Death is the revealer of life,” he said. It’s only at death that the fullness of someone’s life breaks open.
All of a sudden we see them more clearly, and with so much more love (and longing) than we even did in life.
I suspect that happened for the disciples of Jesus. After his horrible death, the fullness of his life, and the meaning of his death, broke open. Now they had the rest of their lives to regret not loving him better, not staying and praying with him in the Garden, not fleeing from the Cross but, instead, staying and dying with him.
Maybe that’s what they were all saying, through their heartbreak and tears, that Easter evening. They may have been remembering, over and over, the precious moments they shared with him in his life, and accusing themselves of the grossest ignorance in not understanding who he was, and to what he had called them.
And then. Two disciples from Emmaus came running into that Upper Room with the most astonishing news. He’s alive! And we recognized him in the Breaking of the Bread! And no sooner had they announced this glorious news than Jesus Himself stood among them. And suddenly, nothing was ever the same again.
Are you longing for a deceased loved one? Imagine them just entering into your room right now. Oh, what endless joy! They are alive.
Trust this vision. Trust Jesus. They are alive.
How do you experience the presence of your deceased loved ones?
Kathy McGovern © 2021