9 April 2026 – Thursday of Easter Week
Acts 3:11–26; Luke 24:35–48
Homily
The most surprising thing in this Gospel is the fear that grips the eleven Apostles and their companions. Shortly before, the disciples who had met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and recognized Him in the breaking of bread had returned to tell the Apostles about these things. They replied: “It is true! The Lord has risen, and He has appeared to Simon.” Before that, there had been the testimony of the women who had come to the tomb on Easter morning. So everyone already knew that Jesus had indeed risen. Suddenly, just as they were talking together about Jesus, He appeared in their midst and simply said to them: “Peace be with you.” And that was enough to make them frightened and filled with awe. What, then, is the source of this fear?
The reason for their fear is no doubt that the Jesus who makes Himself present among them is different from the image they have formed of Him, and of Whom they continue to speak.
Is there not something similar happening today in our so-called ‘old Christian’ countries? We speak a great deal of Jesus, just as the Apostles did amongst themselves. Perhaps we are too quick to forget that Jesus is other than all the images we form of Him. These images may be useful to us in coming into personal contact with Him, and above all in ‘speaking of Him’; they may have served the Christian people as a whole in the so-called ‘Christian’ eras. But these images are no longer an effective means of mediation for a very large proportion of the men and women of our time, who have not necessarily rejected Christ even when they have abandoned sacramental practice and perhaps even the Church as an institution.
We would undoubtedly do well to be far less certain about everything we have to say about Jesus and to allow Him to make Himself present among us in unexpected ways. The pierced hands and feet He shows us are the hands and feet of all His brothers and sisters wounded by wars and by hatred. Through the mouths of all the hungry on earth, He tells us again and again: “Do you have anything to eat?”
There is much talk these days of the “New Evangelization” and the need to re-evangelize Western society. To achieve this, it is essential that we rid ourselves of all the images – often highly sentimental – that we have of Jesus, which have accumulated in the collective consciousness over many centuries but no longer speak to the men and women of today. Let us once again expose ourselves to the impact of the very words of the Gospel. Let us allow Jesus to enter our lives and ask us, “Why are you troubled?”, and call us once more to “the conversion proclaimed in His name for the forgiveness of sins”.
Armand VEILLEUX