Mark 10:45

Tag: Easter

  • Bronze Pennies, Burned Hearts

    Bronze Pennies, Burned Hearts

    Wednesday in the Octave of Easter

    Acts 3:1-10; Luke 24:13-35

    One day in 1947, a teenage boy bought a school lunch and put the change in his pocket. Later, he noticed that one of the pennies, stamped in the Denver mint in 1943, was bronze. Like most people, he knew that pennies minted during those war years were steel, not bronze. When he inquired, government officials said he was mistaken, it was a fraud. Some intrigued collectors offered to buy it. Despite this, he kept it. When he died in 2019, the little one-cent piece he got as change for his lunch in 1947 sold at auction for nearly 2 million dollars.

    Appearance is one thing, value another.

    The reading from Acts makes the same point. The crippled man at the Beautiful Gate would’ve been very happy with a penny, and clearly that’s what he expected when he saw Peter and John. But again, appearances are deceiving, for those ordinary-looking men possessed something infinitely more valuable: the healing power of Christ.

    Then in the gospel, two disciples blinded by sorrow see, not Jesus, but what appears to be an ordinary man. Ordinary, that is, until something most extraordinary happens: he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them (Luke 24:30). And note particularly what happens after this; as Luke says, With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight (24:31).

    In this way, Luke goes to the heart of the Sacramental power that transforms human sight into vision. When we look around the church, what do we see? In our fonts, water; in the baptistery, oils; in cruets, wine; and on patens, the host. Yet, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the will of the Father, and the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, these ordinary elements of Earth become the invaluable tools of Heaven; through them and their ministers, our Lord heals and sanctifies every soul who seeks Him with the eyes of faith.

    Just as those two disciples reached Jerusalem with hearts ablaze—no longer discouraged or blind – to proclaim “We have seen the Lord,” so, too, are we sent today. Christ empowers us through Baptism, strengthens us through anointing, and feeds us in the Eucharist. This is the grace that opens our eyes to His presence, that we might see in the familiar – the neighbor who listens, the friend who forgives, the stranger to whom we show kindness – the many opportunities to love others as God has loved us. With this in mind and heart, let us resolve to pray every day, “Lord, open my eyes,” and in each encounter strive to be His hands and feet – revealing that in every ordinary moment lies the infinite value of His love.

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  • The Stone and Love

    The Stone and Love

    As I’ve said before, one way to try and make sense of the gospels is to put yourself into them, to be at the scene. John’s gospel account today lends itself well to that: Not finding Jesus, Mary wonders what happened; Peter, hearing from her that Jesus isn’t there, runs to the tomb and rushes in to see for himself; John, breathless, peers into the empty tomb and believes.

    Yet, everything that happened after Mary arrived at the tomb depended on the one thing I couldn’t understand: Why was the stone rolled away?

    Being God, Jesus certainly didn’t need it moved. His glorified body will soon be passing through locked doors as if they aren’t there, suddenly appearing or disappearing, and ascending into the heavens. The stone was no obstacle to him.

    Then it occurred to me… it was an obstacle to us. If the stone hadn’t been rolled back, Mary wouldn’t have searched for an answer, Peter wouldn’t have rushed in, and John wouldn’t have believed. The stone wasn’t rolled away for the Lord’s sake; it was rolled away for ours.

    Still, the people in the story didn’t have to respond as they did. Mary needn’t have gone to the tomb at all, let alone wondered where the body of Jesus had been taken. Peter and John could’ve stayed where they were and kept doing whatever they were doing.

    But they didn’t. Why? Love.

    Mary Magdalene loved Jesus because he had healed her and turned her life around. Love doesn’t settle; it keeps searching, even when hope seems lost. For his part, Peter might never live down denying Jesus three times, but he had also confessed him as Messiah, the only one to Whom they could go. His is a love that may be imperfect and impetuous, but it moves; it doesn’t hesitate in the face of mystery. And John, so often called the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved, shows us by seeing and believing, that the eyes of love recognize truth, even when they don’t fully understand it.

    Thus, while Mary, Peter, and John each responded differently, love is the common denominator. The empty tomb evokes not just curiosity; it evokes love’s response.

    As for us, this is the time to measure our own love for Christ, and our own willingness to respond. The Resurrection isn’t a mere historical event; it’s a personal invitation. The stone is still rolled back today – not because Jesus needs help getting out, but because we need help getting in: into faith, into hope, into the new life he offers.

    Love searches. Love rushes in. Love believes.

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