Discerning the Risen Christ

Discernment: Discerning the Risen Christ at work in today’s world-- In both of  the readings in today’s Catholic Mass, Acts 3: 11-26 and Luke 24: 35-48,  Luke asks the same question: Why are you amazed or startled?  The question is first raised by Luke in Acts when the people are startled that the crippled man was healed through Peter and John’s intercession. The question is raised again In the Gospel of Luke when the disciples and the apostles are gathered in the upper room behind locked doors.  Jesus appears  and says: “Peace be with you.” The disciples and the eleven apostles are taken aback. Jesus says to them: “Why are you troubled?  …[W]hy do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”

The Risen Christ is very much in the here and now. I wonder whether Jesus would not ask us the same question He asked the disciples and the Eleven gathered in that upper room. “Why are you amazed when I work miracles through a physician, a nurse, a teacher, a parent, a public servant through whom I bring love, justice,  comfort, healing, truth, courage, understanding, and/or relief  of an unmet need to  a desperate, grieving, needy individual? Why do positive responses from people pondering a distressing situation leave you startled? Why are you discombobulated when a little child responds to a tragedy in a way that awakens the hearts of millions around the world to help Veterans of the Iraq war or victims of natural disasters or a child battered with cancer whose family needs comfort and financial aid? Why do question arise within you when someone forgives the person who brought harm to his/her family? Do you not believe? Do you not know that I continue the work I have begun from the beginning of the world and during my physical life here 2000+ years ago? Do you not believe that I am risen from the dead and dwell in every human being and can enter any “locked door”?