＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊  

Acts 3:11-26

 

Ps 8:2ab & 5, 6-7, 8-9

O Lord our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊ 

Luke 24:35-48

 Then the two told what had happened on the road to Emmaus, and how Jesus had made himself known, when he broke bread with them.  While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood in their midst.(He said to them, "Peace to you.")

In their panic and fright they thought they were seeing a ghost, but he said to them, "Why are you upset, and how does such an idea cross your minds? Look at my hands and feet, and see that it is I myself! Touch me, and see for yourselves, for a ghost has no flesh and bones as I have!" (As he said this, he showed his hands and feet.)

 Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, as they were astonished; so he said to them, "Have you anything to eat?" And they gave him a piece of broiled fish. He took it, and ate it before them.

 Then Jesus said to them, "Remember the words I spoke to you when I was still with you: Everything written about me in the law of Moses, in the prophets and in the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

 And he said, "So it was written: the Messiah had to suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead. Then repentance and forgiveness in his name would be proclaimed to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things.

Gospel Reflection：

Touch Me

When the serpent inquired of any prohibitions from God, Eve readily cited God's prohibitive orders and with some ingenious addition of her own: "God said 'You shall not eat the fruit the tree that is in the middle the garden, nor shall you touch it or you shall die"" (Gen 3:3).

God made no mention of touching (cf. Gen 2.15); it was Eve's own invention, which could only mean her own sinful desire to break the law and grab what was God's, and her own mind's powerful self-censuring by unconscious addition to the original prohibition.

Such heightened prohibition had since then remained in the collective consciousness of Israel: to touch God's Ark was to die. The truth is, grace should be grabbed; it must be received gratefully when given graciously.

Now that the Time has come, Jesus invites us, the frightened humanity, to do what we have long desired: to touch Divinity, feel the scars of his wounds of love for us, and to merge our self in his embrace, like a child in its mother's.

 

"The Mother of God is our mother. May the good mother ask and beg for us,

may she request and obtain what is good for us."

~~~ ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY ~~~