Breaking Open the Word

By James Cavanagh

April 4: Easter Sunday

Scripture readings:

• Acts 10:34, 37-43
• Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
• Colossians 3:1-4
• Luke 24:13-35

Overview: For the next 50 days we will hear readings from the Acts of the Apostles at Sunday Mass and daily Mass. More than just an account of the history of the early Church, Acts shows how Jesus Christ continued to work through the Church. The first reading is part of a speech that Peter delivered to the first Gentile converts: a Roman Centurion named Cornelius along with his “relatives and close friends” (10:24). In these few verses the essential Gospel message, or kerygma, is proclaimed. The second reading focuses on the reality of the risen Christ and how those who believe in him “have been raised with him.”  As was the case with many young churches of the first century, the church in Colossae struggled between two schools of thought: One school taught that they needed to follow Jewish laws and customs, while another promoted pagan beliefs and practices. But St. Paul reminds them to focus on Jesus Christ. He explains how their lives are “hid with Christ.” They should, therefore, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” Some people think that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament. But as the Gospel reading makes clear, the Old Testament is vital for understanding the full meaning and mission of Christ, while Christ is the interpretive “key” that unlocks the Old Testament. The climax of the story comes when Christ is revealed “in the breaking of the bread.”

Key verse: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures” (Lk 24:27).

“Catechism of the Catholic Church”: “The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant pre-figurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son. Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen” (No. 128-129).

Pope Benedict XVI: “The formula that ‘Jesus’ is the ‘Christ’ signifies quite simply that the Christ-message of the Old Testament has come to fulfillment in the historical Jesus; that you can understand who Jesus is on the basis of the Old Testament and see what the Old Testament means in the light of the Christ-event” (“God’s Word: Scripture, Tradition, Office”).

Life application: “Your life,” Paul said, “is hidden with Christ in God.” Vatican II taught that “Christ fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (“Gaudium et Spes,” 22). Vatican II also stressed the importance of reading Scripture for everyone. We discover the mystery of God and of our own lives as we contemplate Christ truly present “in Scriptures and in the breaking of the bread.”