The Third Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2021

Luke 24:35–48

The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread. While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

“He showed them his hands and his feet.”  We may easily miss these few, simple words, and yet they sum up the entire Gospel, the very life of the Lord Jesus, and the purpose of the Son of God in coming to earth.  These words compliment those of the Prophet Zechariah and quoted by St. John: “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.”  The Lord presents his mortal wounds to his Apostles both to convince them that it is indeed he himself, and that he was alive, and also to allow them to see his love for them.  In doing this, he offers them the opportunity to speak the words of faith which Thomas would profess a week later, in his awe: “My Lord and my God!”  It is in gazing at his wounds that we know ourselves to be loved with an infinite, enveloping love by our God.  We do this today when we pray with our hearts before a crucifix, when we receive him in Holy Communion, when we confess our sins in the Sacrament of Penance.  

These are also the signs of contradiction old Simeon told the Blessed Virgin about when she brought her Infant to the Temple for the first time.  Rather than the One who received them coming upon us in wrath and for vengeance on account of them, the Lord shows them to us, saying, “Peace be with you!”  Instead of destroying a life, they give us life.  And far from repulsing people, they draw all those of goodwill to him.  One day we will feel the wounds of his hands upon us when he embraces us upon our entrance into heaven.