Have confidence that even in our most dire moments He will walk with us to a new life
3rd Sunday of Easter homily
Today, the third Sunday of the Easter, the Church lets us listen to the Gospel passage of Saint Luke through the story of the two disciples on their way back to Emmaus. After having waited for nearly three days, they still have not seen Jesus rise from the dead, just as He had promised, so the two men were filled with disappointment and despair.
They had put all their hope in the Messiah who would free them from the domination of the Roman Empire and give the Israelites a bright future by Jesus Christ Himself. That has now disappeared into smoke and because of that, they feel a crushing defeat and no longer had any hope and set off to return to their home city. Return to the old ways of life and doing things.
The disciples were disappointed and discouraged after witnessing the fact that Jesus was crucified and tragically died on the cross and decided to resume their lives as fishermen (Lk 24:13). But amazingly whenever you want to give up and go back to your previous lifestyle, at that very moment, the risen Christ or the resurrected Jesus would appear and walk side by side with you as He did with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus (See Luke 24:13-35).
What can we learn from that example and what lesson does Jesus want to teach us? It is at the very times when we feel like an utter failure and want to give up and no longer have the will and enthusiasm to move forward, to pursue our vocation or to persevere in our commitments, whether it is a commitment to a marriage or to the Priesthood or Religious life. At these critical moments, when we almost lose all our hope and fall into despair, the risen Jesus will come and appear to us. He comes to sustain us, to comfort us and to strengthen us, so that we will not give up.
In the midst of darkness, Christ brings light into our lives
There have been times in my life when I myself have fallen into a dead end, with no way out, no hope, and I did not feel the presence of God in the darkness of life. I was depressed and felt really down. I wanted to give up and didn’t want to continue my priestly vocation journey.
At that time, in the early 1980s when the Vietnamese communists were hunting me down, I only wished that God would come and take me home with Him. That would solve my problem and release me from my sufferings of living without freedom, education and prospect of a future. Indeed, the worst of all is being hunted down by your enemy. In such a situation, life indeed has no meaning at all. In such cases, sometimes death is considered better, and that thought had flashed through my mind.
In that particular moment in my life, I prayed fervently to God every night for a whole month and begged Him to take me home, just as Tobit did in his prayer in the Bible:
Then sad at heart, I groaned and wept aloud. With sobs I began to pray:You are righteous, Lord, and all your deeds are just; All your ways are mercy and fidelity; you are the judge of the world. And now, Lord, be mindful of me and look with favour upon me. Do not punish me for my sins, or for my inadvertent offenses, or for those of my ancestors. They sinned against you, and disobeyed your commandments. So you handed us over to plunder, captivity, and death, to become an object lesson, a byword, and a reproach in all the nations among whom you scattered us. Yes, your many judgments are right in dealing with me as my sins, and those of my ancestors, deserve. For we have neither kept your commandments, nor walked in fidelity before you. So now, deal with me as you please; command my life breath to be taken from me, that I may depart from the face of the earth and become dust. It is better for me to die than to live.”
Tb 3: 1-6
But fortunately, God listened to my pleas and He came and rescued me from my misery. He gave me a way out and finally opened up a new horizon and a new life for me. Promising a new future, when I successfully escaped by boat from Vietnam to Malaysia at the end of 1981. I was freed from the life of a fugitive and from the fear of living as a hunted person.
Today, the Word of God through the Gospel of Luke is resounding in the hearts of each one of us, to remind and encourage us, especially those who are in a situation of hopelessness and can’t find their way around. If we could not find a way out for ourselves at the moment, we should not be completely disappointed, but need to put our trust and confidence in God. He will then come and accompany us in the darkest moments of our lives when we have no hope at all. It is in such terrifying moments that the risen Christ will appear and accompany us. He comes to us in order to explain and help us understand the mystery of suffering and death that we have to go through in our lives, before we can enter into glory and triumph. Just as He calmly explained to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus:
Then Jesus said to them: O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him (Lk 24, 25-27).
Luke 24, 25-27
May you always recognize the presence of God in your life, through events that take place in your daily routine or through the moment of sadness or happiness, through miserable and unsuccessful events and especially when you are faced with difficult problems in life. May you never lose hope and trust in the power of the Risen Jesus, who has conquered everything through his death and resurrection.
