My Lord and my God! Jesus is risen from the dead. We are still celebrating Easter, the victory of Jesus over the powers of darkness and death. As you know Easter is the most important celebration of our faith. That is why we need one week to rejoice and celebrate Easter. We people of God we passed from death to resurrection, to new life. As we give thanks for new life in Jesus, there are many signs of the resurrection. Resurrection happens when people live united one heart and one soul to respond to the need of each member according to our first reading. God continues to work in our world. Similarly resurrection happens in our community when parishioners feed the hungry…. It is easy to believe in the resurrection when everything goes well, when life is without deep crisis, when the economy is good, when the job is good, when the family , children and parents are fine, when… But when crisis hits our lives, our family, our job…. when family members passed away, illness, lost job, we enter into a period of anger, doubt and crisis. That happened to the apostles. It was easy for them to believe when they saw the miracles Jesus performed. It was easy for them to believe when they saw Jesus preaching, or healing people. It was hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus after the crisis of the crucifixion. The Scripture tells us, the apostles feared the authorities, because they were afraid that what had happened to Jesus might happen to them. They knew already that Jesus was risen – the women had told them about the empty tomb, and encountering Jesus in the garden. When Jesus appeared to them he calmed their fear and brought them peace: Peace be with you, then He gave them the Holy Spirit and commissioned them. As the Father sent me, so I send you. The disciples now become apostles, which means one sent. He Commissioned his weak and timid apostles to carry the Gospel to the ends of the world. You and I often share the feeling of hopelessness and doubt, anxiety and fear. Doubting is part of human being. We face fears, disappointment, betrayal, anxiety shame in our lives every day. Sometimes, we feel like Jesus is not present in our lives, or because of our doubts and failures we can not feel His presence. Sometimes, we tend to lock on our hearts and we become a prisoner of our own sins, shame and self perceptions. Like the disciples, we try to hide our shame and our disappointment in ourselves by locking the doors to our hearts. But in spite of the barred of our hearts, Jesus stands in our midst and says :shalom which means peace be with you. We pray today that we might all have mature faith, are able to grow through crisis. We pray that we might all be included in that phrase of the Lord’s, “Blessed are those who have not seen but believe”.
