April 18 - Third Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

 

First Reading  Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15,17-19
Peter preaches that Jesus has been raised from the dead and calls upon the people to repent.

 

Responsorial Psalm  Psalm 4:2,4,7-8,9
A prayer seeking God's favour

 

Second Reading  1 John 2:1-5a
Those who know God keep his commandments. 

Gospel Reading
Luke 24:35-48 

 

 In today’s Gospel we see how Jesus trys to help the disciples understand that all that had taken place—his suffering, death and resurrection—made sense. That was something that took the disciples a while to get their heads around, as suffering never makes sense to any of us.  So Jesus had to help them understand not only that he was alive, but that all that had taken place was meant to happen. They were meant to happen and they fitted into God’s plan for the world. All of us are continually faced with difficult situations of suffering. So often we cannot make sense of why we have to suffer and we may even see it as a punishment. Even though we don’t have a direct answer to this question, what Jesus says to his disciples in this Gospel is a help, because it reminds us that everything that happens fits into God’s bigger plan. The point is that God can bring good out of every situation, even turning the evil work of people into good.  But for the most part we cannot see that.  We are just faced with each individual situation of suffering and that is hard.  However, the Lord is telling us that there is a bigger picture which makes sense of everything that happens.  When we die we will then see that picture and it will all make sense to us.