MEETING THE RISEN LORD IN GALILEE


EASTER MONDAY

Act 2:14,22-33; Ps 16:1-2,7-11; Mt 28:8-15

Leaving Jerusalem to Galilee

With the Church’s celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ commencing with the Easter Vigil, we struggle to receive and assimilate the divine and mysterious gift entrusted to man. It is the greatest thing ever to happen to our nature, the resurrection of the Son of Man from death. The old and sinful human nature cannot accommodate it, for it is a divine reality. Any person who is to encounter it needs a new orientation. Its reception is the birth of a new or regenerated human nature. The women who desired to anoint the dead body of Jesus Christ had what was nearest to the required orientation for the reception of the eternal reality of the Risen Lord. Their desire to see the Lord, dead or alive, made their minds and hearts susceptible to the new and heavenly reality. The desire made them believe the angels with the news of the resurrection of the Lord without any hesitation. They drew the Risen Lord to themselves by their loving desire. “Filled with awe and great joy the women came quickly away from the tomb and ran to tell the disciples.” Their faith in the Good News from the angels prepared them to see the Lord and recognised him. Their desire drew him to them.

The joy of the women on receiving the Good News from the angels is similar to that of the newly baptised. They have prepared themselves in various ways to encounter the Lord in the Sacraments. They have learned the Catechisms and scriptures; they believed in the teaching of the Church. The faith is necessary to encounter the Lord in the mysteries of the Church celebrated in the Sacraments. We have also renewed our profession of faith in the Lord, with minds and hearts purified through the Lenten observances, and reawakened our desire for the Lord in prayer and meditations. With the newly baptised, we renew our encounter with the Risen Lord in the mysteries we celebrate in the Sacraments of the Church. With these women of faith filled with joy at the news of the Lord’s resurrection, we encounter the Lord as he comes to us. “And there, coming to meet them, was Jesus. ‘Greetings’ he said. And the women came up to him and, falling down before him, clasped his feet. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee; they will see me there.’” Did we feel deep joy on receiving our Lord in the proclamation of the word of God at our Easter celebration? Did we fall at his feet as he comes to us in the Sacramental and Eucharistic species? These were brief and highly ritualized events in the Church, that represent our Jerusalem.

The Lord urges us all to go down to Galilee, where he will meet us with the brethren. Galilee is the place of the ordinary things of everyday life. It was in Galilee we lived and conceived the desire and hunger to encounter and worship God in Jerusalem. Though Jerusalem is the place of the Temple of God, it is also a place of denial and abandonment of the Lord; it is a place of his passion and crucifixion. Our experience in the Church can make or mare us; it all depends on our prevalent desires and intentions. In the highly ritualised celebration of the mysteries of Christ in the Church, many lose sight of the presence of God, while others reinforce their awareness of the divine. The apostles lost their faith in the Son of Man, but the women’s faith and desire to see the Lord was undaunted. The Risen Lord promised to come to us in the familiar places. But we must not forget that he will only be recognised by faith and not by the senses we used to know him. The brethren must believe the Good News from the women who encountered him to see him. Peter believed them and encountered the Lord at Galilee. Hence, he witnesses to the people about the risen Lord. “Men of Israel, listen to what I am going to say: Jesus the Nazarene was a man commended to you by God by the miracles and portents and signs that God worked through him when he was among you, as you all know.” The Son of Man continues the miracles and signs among us and through us as we testify to his resurrection in faith and love of the Holy Spirit to each other in Galilee, in our families, where he remains with us. He reveals himself only to the eyes of faith.

Let us pray: O God, who give constant increase to your Church by new offspring, grant that your servants may hold fast in their lives to the Sacrament they have received in faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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