Third Sunday of Easter - Cycle A

Acts 2:14, 22-33
1 Pt 1:17-21
Lk 24:13-35 

“You will show me the path to life.” This line from today’s responsorial psalm sums up the message of this liturgy and of the Easter season. Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, fills his people with the same life, and this becomes a path, a way of life. Hence, Peter can say in the second reading, “You were ransomed from your futile conduct.”

The journey of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, of course, symbolizes this “path of life” and the new way in which we are called to walk. Along this way, and amidst the challenges of life, we can be tempted, as they were, to “look downcast” and simply discuss how “we were hoping” that things would be better. By giving death more credit than it deserves, we can fail to recognize that Jesus is walking with us through the most difficult hours.

This is especially true in a “culture of death,” when those most difficult hours can tempt people to resort to abortion or euthanasia. Christ, risen from the dead, walks with us and dines with us. He rescues us from the “futile conduct” of turning to death as a solution to our problems, because now, the kingdom of death has been conquered. Embracing life-giving repentance, we are now filled with the Holy Spirit, whom the risen Christ sends upon us, as the first reading declares. That Spirit not only purifies us, but enables us to announce the Gospel of Life and to become advocates for all our brothers and sisters, just as the Holy Spirit is an advocate for us.