Our imitation of God in this life—that is, our
willed imitation, as distinct from any of the likenesses which He has impressed upon our natures or our states—must be an imitation of God Incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human
conditions.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Four Loves
(“The Divine life operating under human conditions”
in Jesus. So may it be with you this day.) |
ACTS 3:11-26; PS 8:2AB AND 5, 6-7, 8-9
LK 24:35-48
The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way,
and how they had come to recognize him 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."
Reflection on the
Scriptures |
The readings after Easter always give me pause. Many have witnessed these incredible things and see the various acts of the apostles resulting in healing. Yet, they can’t seem to get it. It always makes think that if they see all this and can’t believe what hope is there in getting people 2000 years later to understand. What does it take to convince them – they were able to personally
hear the teachings of Christ. To be in the presence of this amazing “man” – they witnessed Him healing and performing miracles and still allowed His crucifixion. The first reading emphasizes that aspect:
The God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus
whom you handed over and denied in Pilate's presence,
when he had decided to release him.
It seems a difficult task, indeed, for the apostles
to shepherd these people to an understanding of the Lord. It made me think about the times I’m unwilling to recognize that I am a beloved child of God. I attribute this to my difficulty in accepting that I am worthy of God’s love. Perhaps this is part of the resistance from the crowd – not being able to accept how much they are loved. They waited for a king to save them physically from enemies but have difficulty fathoming what true salvation is. How often do we look for
a “savior” in all the wrong places? We forget that we saved for much greater things and that true success is not of earthly treasures. Jesus has freed us from the chains of this world and invites us to look beyond.
- by Nancy Shirley
Revelations of Divine
Love - by Julian of Norwich
Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 50
“The blame of our
sin continually hangeth upon us.” “In the sight of God the soul that shall be saved was never dead, nor ever shall be dead”
AND in this life mercy and forgiveness is our way and evermore leadeth us to grace. And by the tempest and the sorrow that we fall into on our part, we be often dead as to man’s doom in
earth; but in the sight of God the soul that shall be saved was never dead, nor ever shall be.
But yet here I wondered and marvelled with all the diligence of my soul, saying thus within me: Good Lord, I see Thee that art very Truth; and I know in truth that we sin grievously every day and be much
blameworthy; and I may neither leave the knowing of Thy truth, nor do I see Thee shew to us any manner of blame. How may this be? For I knew by the common teaching of Holy Church and by mine own feeling, that the blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us, from the first man unto the time that we come up unto heaven: then was this my marvel that I saw our Lord God shewing to us no more blame than if we were as clean and as holy as Angels be in heaven. And between these two contraries my reason
was greatly travailed through my blindness, and could have no rest for dread that His blessed presence should pass from my sight and I be left in unknowing [of] how He beholdeth us in our sin. For either [it] behoved me to see in God that sin was all done away, or else me behoved to see in God how He seeth it, whereby I might truly know how it belongeth to me to see sin, and the manner of our blame. My longing endured, Him continually beholding;—and yet I could have no patience for great
straits and perplexity, thinking: If I take it thus that we be no sinners and not blameworthy, it seemeth as I .should err and fail of knowing of this truth; and if it be so that we be sinners and blameworthy,—Good Lord, how may it then be that I cannot see this true thing in Thee, which art my God, my Maker, in whom I desire to see all truths?
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