Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Today's Mass Readings

“A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”
Jean Corbon, in his book, “The Wellspring of Worship,” makes an interesting statement:
           “The silence of the resurrection is here more than ever the mystery of the kingdom that is at hand. From this point forward, and in his integral humanity, Jesus IS; any element of phenomenality would be a sign of continuing subjection to death. That is why he does not “appear” to his disciples as though he were someone absent who put in occasional appearances; rather, as the vocabulary of the Gospels makes clear, he ‘lets himself be seen’ by them. He does not change form but IS; it is they who, in the measure of their faith, ‘recognize’ him.”

“In the measure of their faith.” Like the apostles, to recognize Christ, the exercise of faith is crucial. This exercise is a deeply human and humanizing act of the person! It is “sacramental.” That is, we choose to see into and through the visible to the invisible. This action of faith is a commitment to live each present moment as taking us into a future worth living for: you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.

Fr. Luigi Giussani speaks of going from “the shore of appearances to the shore of His Presence, from the shore of non-being to the shore of Being.” Let us seek to see Christ in the Eucharistic mysteries, so that we can see his saving presence in the remainder of our lives.

Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB