Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

            The Salmist today, Third Sunday of Easter, implores the Lord: “let your face shine on us!”  The face of the Lord shines on us through creation.  When we see the creatures, the work of His hands, we see the Creator.  His face shines on us through one another.  When we see our neighbor we behold another creature just like us, not from us, not made by us, but by the Father in heaven.  In a special way His face shines on us through the Scriptures.

            All of Scriptures speak of one person and that person is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The Old and the New Testaments may be summed up in one name: Jesus.  Saint Peter in the First Reading interpreted that the God of our forefathers is the same God as the one on the Cross.  Saint John in the Second Reading interpreted the dying on the Cross of Jesus as our salvation.  For in His dying, our sins are expiated.  It is not only us who are saved but the also the whole world.  Even the Risen Christ first with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and then with the Twelve explained the Scriptures and used these to further convince them of His saving Passion, Death and Resurrection.

            We Catholics may very well be accused of having all the means for our salvation but ignoring or putting less importance to them.  We have the Bible and how many of us can say to our Lord that we open it, read it, meditate upon it and pray with it.  Our ignorance of the Bible is our ignorance of Christ.  We have the Sacraments, especially the Holy Mass, but how many of us can say that we come to the Banquet regularly and we come fully prepared, attentive, and participative.  The readings of today remind us that it is the face of the Lord shining on us through the pages of the Sacred Scriptures.  The Bible’s message is Jesus.

            It is not enough however to be knowledgeable about the Bible, to know it word for word, or to memorize lines from the different books of the Bible.  It is important that we know about Jesus, Christian Catholics as we are.  It is however infinitely more important that in reading, studying and praying the Bible we come to know Jesus.  We come to have a personal rapport with Him.  We come to treat Him as a friend, as a family member, as a loved one.

            When we go home therefore today take notice of your Bible at your homes.  Lift it up, dust it off, and remove it from its plastic encasing.  Open it, read it, study it, pray with it.  It is there that we will see His face and it will shine upon us.  Amen.