Listen to the Word Alive - the Easter-mindset

WORD 2day: Thursday within the Easter Octave 

April 8, 2021: Acts 3: 11-26; Luke 24:35-48

Understanding the Scriptures was an essential part of realising their identity for the disciples. From yesterday we read from Luke how the Risen Lord took upon himself the task of opening their minds to the Scriptures, because it was from that understanding that they were able to make sense of all that they were going through. Once clarified, their identity was extraordinarily strong and they accomplished feats that nobody would imagine. That is the power of clear and specific identity.

Hence a typical Easter-mindset is to Listen to the Word Alive. The Word made flesh, lived among them and they failed to completely grasp what was happening. When the Lord resurrected, they beheld the Word anew... now it was a Word that was fulfilled, accomplished in history, holding out to them new life and new meaning, an altogether new identity, a Word that was so Alive to the more than ever! It is the same Word Alive that speaks to us today - in the Scripture, the Sacraments and the Situation around. Are we listening?

Listening to the Word Alive, would mean looking at what is happening around me with the eyes that the Word would provide; hearing the cries of the helpless and the neglected as the Word would resound; feeling one with the suffering and the exploited as the Word would propose; taking on ourselves the struggles of the unfortunate and the downtrodden as the Word, in Christ Jesus, did. These should begin from the closest of our circles - let us say our families, our communities, our neighbourhood, our workplace colleagues and so on. These are not merely some acts, it is a mindset, an Easter-mindset that would define our very identity.

Yes, if we are truly listening to the Word, we would hear these questions posed to us: what is your identity? What does the Scripture say to you? Do you spend time listening to the Lord speak in and through the Scripture, the Sacrament and the Situation? Do you really seek to understand what the Lord wants of you today and strive to fulfill it? 

What is my mindset today?