EASTER OCTAVE 2022
Tuesday, April 19: Acts 2: 36-41; John 20:11-18
"My father and your father" - what a beautiful expression to hear from Jesus today. The first reading presents repentance and baptism as a way of being accepted as children of the God who raised Jesus from the dead: Jesus' father and our father. Our faith is all about relationship: the relationship of a covenant that has been lived from eternity, between God and God's own.
At times our vision of God can be blurred, when we are too focused on our own whims and fancies and are stuck to our own selfish desires and decisions. Openness to hear what the Lord wants to communicate, is fundamentally the openness to a strong relationship with God, which presumes a cordial, responsible and loving relationship with each other, with one's brothers and sisters in Christ.
And in the Father, through Christ we are made into one people, brothers and sisters in the one Father who has made us, loved us, redeemed us and continues to sustain us. We remain the people of God, only as long as we remain one people, brothers and sisters, united in Christ and related to the Father.
The Easter sign is this capacity to see beyond all differences and find our oneness in the Lord who is Risen and the Father who sent him.