April 26, 2009 Cycle B
Acts 3:13-15,17-19 1 John 2:1-5 Luke 24:35-48
There is no worse feeling than when someone comes up to you and unexpectedly says, “Remember me, don’t you?” You have to quickly start to catalog from where you might know this person looking and listening for anything identifiable that might help. And then there’s the great feeling of accomplishment of recognition and the correct name comes into focus. If not, you have the choice to either fake it, hoping that further clues may help you figure it out, or you might just give up and say, “Your face is familiar, give me a name.”
I always found it remarkable to have had the opportunity to minister with Bishop Charles Buswell. He certainly had the knack of putting names and faces together, and seemed even in his later life not to forget that connection. Obviously for us in the Diocese of Pueblo it was a real blessing to have him be our leader for so long. His gift of recognition bordered on genius.
We know today of the gift of recognition and yet it appears in light of our Gospel passage that the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus were so varied. It seems that the Risen Christ left a different impression on just about everyone who saw Him. The Gospel today starts with the two who had met Jesus on the way to Emmaus and admittedly did not immediately recognize Him. The disciples of Jesus in the upper room found it hard to recognize the Risen Christ. They thought He was a ghost. When Jesus did appear it’s obvious that the disciples were completely confounded and panic stricken.
It reminds me of the story of the Human Resource Director who was interviewing four job applicants. He asked each of them the same question, “What is 2 and 2?” The first interviewee was a journalist. His answer was “22.” The second, an engineer, calculated the answer to be “somewhere between 3,999 and 4,001. The third applicant, a lawyer, sighted a case in which 2 and 2 had been proven to be 4. The last candidate was an accountant. When he heard the interviewers question he leaned across the desk and in a low voice said, “How much do you want it to be?”
It’s evident by our Gospel today that lack of recognition, uncertainty, doubt, and even down right disbelief, plagued the early disciples. They had difficulty perceiving who the Risen Christ was, even when He stood before them. Ultimately we know that the disciples came to full belief. In time the disciples gave their lives not for an apparition, a hallucination, or a figment of their imagination, but for the real faith that they had placed in the Risen Christ who stood among them.
(Addition for Children’s Mass Only)
Today marks the close of our formal religious formation classes. My gratitude to all our catechists and volunteers who ministered to our children all year. Through their sharing of their faith they assisted our children in a greater awareness and recognition of God and the person of Jesus Christ. I pray that through their efforts each of our young people grow in their recognition of the Risen Christ. Thanks too to the children and parents who participated in the class sessions this past school year.
In this Gospel of Luke Jesus makes clear to the disciples the reality of His glorified human presence. His full embodied existence by showing them His wounded hands and feet, inviting them to touch Him, asking them to give Him something to eat. Then Jesus took the piece of grilled fish and ate it before their eyes.
As with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus opened their minds to the Word of God and opened their eyes in the Breaking of the Bread. Like them, we too come today to Break Bread. We present day Christians cannot identify or recognize Jesus from knowledge of appearance since we have not known Christ’s physical aspect, as did the original disciples. But we “can recognize” Jesus in the sense as we have today in the proclamation of the Holy Scriptures and in the Breaking of the Bread. In this liturgical action that we participate in, the Risen Christ comes to us anew as we recognize Jesus in the Eucharist.
Amen. Amen.Msgr. Tom Adrians, Pastor Christ the King