Homily for the
3d Sunday Of Easter
April 19, 2026
Luke 24: 13-35
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption,
Bronx
St. Francis Xavier,
Bronx
Disciples and Jesus on the way to Emmaus
(Fraternita di Emmaus)
“Was it not necessary that the Christ should
suffer these things and enter his glory” (Luke 24: 26).
No one of sound mind likes suffering, either
his own or someone else’s. Nor, if our
theology is sound, do we believe that God the Father wanted his Son to
suffer. There is a misguided theology of
the atonement that maintains God demanded the blood of Christ to atone for all
the sins of humanity.
Yes, Jesus’ blood—his passion and death—has
atoned for our sins; not because God required it, but because we sinners
inflicted all that pain and suffering on God’s Son, which he didn’t run away
from in spite of his fear—remember his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane to be
delivered from it. Instead, he accepted
what evil men imposed upon him, rather than abandon his mission of bringing God’s
love and mercy to everyone—to everyone!
That universal love outraged a lot of people, somewhat like people being
outraged today that God loves people of all races, all nations, all languages,
even all faiths.
Was it not necessary for Christ to
suffer? Yes, inasmuch as suffering comes
without fail to every woman and man, even very good women and men, even the
saints. God’s Son assumed our full
humanity so that he might elevate us with a share of his divinity, with a share
of his glory. So as a human being he had
to suffer. He had to be one of us, like
us in all things except sin. The sinless
One had to suffer and die as we do so that, like him and thru him, we may be
raised up to be with God.
Bp. Robert Barron makes the keen observation
that “his willingness to go to the limits of godforsakenness … [saves] those
who had wandered from the divine love.”[1] You remember that Jesus cried out from the
cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46).
So Jesus suffered injustice, pain,
abandonment, and death—like victims of the Holocaust, persecuted Christians in
Nigeria, the people of Ukraine, the victims of genocide in Gaza, the millions
of unborn humans aborted every year, women and children abandoned by their men,
women and children trafficked by merchants of human misery. Jesus suffered pain as we do from illness, accidents,
allergies, loss, heartbreak, and unfair treatment. It was necessary that the Christ should
suffer so that we weak and afflicted men and women can look to him with
hope: “Your faith and hope are in God,”
St. Peter reminds us today (1 Pet 1:21).
He cares for us, having shared our experience, and he will redeem us
from our sins and our sorrows, even from death, so that we might “enter his
glory” and live with him in God’s kingdom.
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