Faith Daily | 21 April 2022

PRAYER of the DAY - APBA p 502

Lord of all life and power,

who, through the mighty resurrection of your Son,

overcame the old order of sin and death

to make all things new in him:

grant that we, being dead to sin and alive to you

in Jesus Christ,

may reign with him in glory;

to whom with you and the Holy Spirit

be praise, honour and thanksgiving, now and for all eternity.

Amen

GOSPEL for the Day: Luke 24: 35-48

35Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

36 While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ 37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence.

44 Then 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, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things.

GOSPEL REFLECTION: Carol Streatfield

What a fright the disciples must have got when Jesus appeared in their midst! How similar to the story of poor old ‘Doubting Thomas’, and how similar it would be for us if it happened now. I love the bit where he says, “Have you anything here to eat?” How down to earth! Completely solid, but he wasn’t. Solid people don’t appear out of nowhere, and disappear back into it.

I’m intrigued by particulate science in which all those infinitesimally small particles are actually energy fields which influence each other and amass together to form progressively more and more solid forms. It will be fascinating, as science advances, to see it discover more and more subtle fields of energy. Is that how Christ appears and disappears, from a more subtle energy field to a more solid one? How he is throughout everything and beyond everything? How he can be a human person and the creative source, producing and sustaining, both severally and at the same time?

And he ‘opened their minds to understand the scriptures’, ate his broiled fish, and disappeared.

FINAL PRAYER Venerable Bede Essential Mystic Prayers

O Christ, our Morning Star,

Splendour of lIght Eternal,

shining with the glory of the rainbow,

come and waken us

from the greyness of our apathy,

and renew in us your gift of hope.

Amen