6 April - Third Sunday of Easter
COPYRIGHT, FATHER MARTIN TIERNEY ,FROM HIS BOOK SUNDAYTHOUGHTS.COM
The Third Sunday of Easter
Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-33, 1Pet 1:17-21, Lk 24:13-35
What happened on the road to Emmaus changed everything for the disciples. That experience is not for the privileged few but for all God's people.
In his biography of a remarkable First World War chaplain, Fr Willie Doyle, Alfred O'Rahilly tells the story of a Dublin Fusilier who happened to be home in Dublin on leave at the time of Fr Doyle's death. Meeting a friend who told him the news, he kept repeating incredulously; 'He's not dead. He couldn't be killed.' When at last he was shown a paper describing the padre's death, the soldier spontaneously knelt down on the pavement and began to pray. Then, to the crowd that had gathered round him, he recounted how; when he was lying wounded in an exposed position and expecting every moment to be killed by a shell, Fr Doyle had crept out to him and carried him to a place of safety. I am sure the two disciples on the road to Emmaus had similar feelings of confusion, sadness and desolation at the death of Jesus.
