What Love Does

In today’s first reading, Acts 3: 11-26, St. Paul says to us: “Repent…and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, and that the Lord may grant you times of refreshment and send you the Christ already appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the times of universal restoration of which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.”

Hear,  in that statement, the compassion of our God, who’s had a plan since the beginning of the world that our sins will be wiped away, that we will be refreshed in Christ Jesus, who,  in God’s mind, at the beginning of time, was already  commissioned  to bring about our salvation. God will wait, for as long as it takes, for us to recognize our need for repentance and our need to be forgiven. God will wait for us to turn or return to Him.  Meanwhile, the heavens have received Jesus “until the times of universal restoration of which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old”  (Acts 3: 11-26).

As we move through time, we will, as did the people in the time of Jesus, act out of ignorance (Acts 3: 1-10), not recognize Jesus in our midst, mistake Him for a gardener or a stranger who, in our minds, seems to not know that is going on (compare the Easter stories in each of the Gospels). At others times we will be afraid, confused, and hide as did the disciples when Jesus was crucified, died, was buried and rose again.  These behaviors do not frighten Jesus, who will engage us, as He did his disciples in today’s Gospel, Luke 24: 35-48, asking “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?” “Peace be with you.” And to calm us even more, Jesus will ask us, as He asked the disciples in today’s Gospel, “Have you anything here to eat?” He will simply sit down with us to a meal, sharing ordinary life with us, with our families, with our friends. It is in the ordinariness of life that Jesus will most deeply touch our lives and put us at ease. That is what love does!