DAILY- HOMILY

10 April 2016

3rd SUNDAY OF EASTER

Cycle C.   White.  

Acts 5:27- 32, 40b – 41 / Rev 5:11 –14 / Jn 21:1 - 19

From the 1st Reading: Acts 5:27 - 32

So they brought them in and made them stand before the Council and the High Priest questioned them, "We gave you strict orders not to preach such a Savior; but you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend charging us with the killing of this man."  To this Peter and the apostles replied, "Better for us to obey God rather than any human authority.

"The God of our ancestors raised Jesus whom you killed hanging him on a wooden post. God set him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.  We are witnesses to all these things, as well as the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him." 

Gospel Reading: Jn 21:7 – 8, 12 - 13

Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!"  Simon Peter put on his clothes, for he was stripped for work, and jumped into the water.  The other disciple came in the boat dragging the net full of fish; they were not far from land, about a hundred meters. . . .

Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast," and not one of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" for they knew it was the Lord. Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and he did the same with the fish. 

Reflection

"We gave you strict orders not to preach such a Savior; but you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend charging us with the killing of this man."  These were the words of the Chief Priest of the Sanhedrin, annoyed that despite warnings and threats, the disciples of Jesus continued to speak about their Jesus experience.  The Jewish officials thought that the disciples just wanted to build anti-establishment feelings against them: something understandable.  

There are life experiences we cannot stop talking about.  There are life lessons that we cannot help but share with and teach others because they have become part of us and have changed us radically.  Like the Jewish officials, we cannot help but feel guilty when something we had word so hard to quash; survives, thrives and, from all indications, seems to be the right thing.

It was the Jesus experience of the disciples which emboldened them, to speak about and teach "what they had seen with their eyes." It was the same experience that change their faith life radically that they left everything to follow him, even after Jesus had died and has risen from the dead.

We, too, have our own Jesus experience.  We, too, have our God moments.  Great or small, these experiences have assured us of the presence of the Divine.  These experiences have informed that we are not alone.  

The difficulties have been that these God-moments are easily eclipsed by the razzle-dazzle of goods and gadgets and by a world noisy with different voices all demanding to be heard.  So at times we have become blind and deaf to these moments.

Like with the apostles who first returned to their ordinary lives and occupations, the invitation and challenge are to be attuned to God, to be sensitive to how God works in the different situations we may be.

The fact is God, Jesus, continues to converse with us and builds on and enriches our initial impact-full first encounters with him.  If we can only listen more intently and watch more carefully so that we see him even through the smokes and mirrors, noise and sounds of the ungodly and the vain.

As John the beloved disciples so clearly saw from the boat, "It is the Lord!" 

WE PRAY FOR MTQ DAILY PRAYER DIARY INTENTIONS:

BIRTHDAY

     David Standley G. Choa

     Johanna F. Malabonga

     Imelda Cunanan Inocentes

WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

     Barbara & David Lim

IN MEMORIAM (+)

     Avelina VS Mallonga

Finally, we pray for one another, for those who have asked our prayers and for those who need our prayers the most. 

Have a good day!

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