Saturday of the Third Week of Easter
The Exultet ends by declaring Christ is “the one Morning star who never sets, who, come back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns forever and ever.” Exultet, lines 60-62
This week ends with more snapshots from Jesus’ public ministry and the ministry of the Early Church. St. Peter travels from place to place while the Church is at peace. It may be confusing, but the Gospel of John takes us back to a hard time. At the end of the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus holds firm to His teaching. The crowd who was there rejects this, and many followers “returned to their former way of life.” This scene showed how so many people rejected Jesus and didn’t understand what He was trying to say. The Twelve disciples did not understand this Eucharistic teaching at first, yet they stuck with Jesus. Peter, to his credit, gave Jesus his full support. “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We are convinced you are the Holy One of God.”
For all the criticism St. Peter gets, we can give him credit for standing with Jesus and keeping to his faith. We learn from this that we won’t always understand life. We always don’t get the closure we need when life is hard. Like St. Peter, we know we have life everlasting in Jesus. We know that Jesus Christ is life itself, and gives us peace in the midst of pain, light in the wake of darkness, and life when death is near. Amen. Alleluia!
Reflection by Br. Matthew Marie, OSB
Posted in Article for Easter, Daily Reflections