Good morning good people! May the Risen Lord give you peace and blessings on this Easter Octave. It is 23rd April 2025. We reflect on Acts 3:1–10 & Luke 24:13–35.
Pope Francis taught us: “To love God and neighbour is not something abstract, but profoundly concrete: it means seeing in every person the face of the Lord to be served, to serve Him concretely.”
In the first reading, we witness a powerful act of healing through faith in the name of the Risen Lord. St. Peter’s words to the lame man at the Beautiful Gate are not just a declaration of power, but an invitation into dignity and divine encounter: “I have neither silver nor gold, but I will give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk!” (Acts 3:6)
This miracle is more than physical healing. It is a restoration of identity, a lifting of one once excluded—lame, blind, or foreign—into the heart of worship.
Though the apostles themselves were grieving, they looked beyond their sorrow and extended mercy, both materially and spiritually. This is the call of Easter: to become healing hands of the Risen Christ.
Early in his papacy, Pope Francis quietly visited a centre for young drug addicts in Rome. There, he met a young man burdened with shame and addiction.
The boy couldn’t even lift his eyes—but the Pope gently touched his face and said, “Don’t lose hope. Christ never tires of forgiving us.” Tears flowed—tears of healing.
Francis offered no grand speech, only presence. The Responsorial Psalm echoes this joy: “Let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.” (Psalm 105:3)
The Gospel brings us to the road of Emmaus, where grief was met with grace. Two weary disciples, blinded by sorrow, encounter the Risen Lord in a stranger. Through the breaking of the Word and the Bread, their eyes are opened: “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” (Luke 24:29)
Christ walks with us—in the Sacraments and in the poor, in the stranger we welcome, and in the Scriptures, we break open. Easter is the time to rise from our grief and move beyond comfort. Every encounter becomes holy when we bring Jesus into it. For where Christ is shared, healing happens. Shortly after his election, Pope Francis visited a home for disabled and elderly people.
Among them was a man who had been severely disfigured by illness. Rather than recoil, the Holy Father embraced and kissed him tenderly. That moment echoed the healing of the man at the temple gate—it restored dignity through love, not silver or gold, but Christ’s compassion.
May we go forth as disciples of the Resurrection, bearing mercy, breaking bread, and walking with the Risen Christ.
Have a grace-filled day.