Reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter
The Pilgrims of Emmaus on the Road by James Tissot (1886-1894)
Collect for the Third Sunday of Easter
May your people exult for ever, O God,
in renewed youthfulness of spirit,
so that, rejoicing now in the restored glory of our adoption,
we may look forward in confident hope
to the rejoicing of the day of resurrection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
One of my favorite responsories we sing during Lent is the Media Vita, one of the chants for Compline. The verse in the middle of the responsory prays, Ne projicias nos in tempore senectutis cum defecerit virtus nostra ne derelinquas nos Domine - “Do not cast us off in our old age; when our strength fails, do not forsake us, O God.” I have always found this prayer moving, for whether or not we have reached a venerable old age, we have all experienced weakness and failures, both physical and moral.
However, rather than speaking of old age and failing strength, the collect for today strikes a very different note from the Lenten chant, praying that we may “exult for ever, O God, in renewed youthfulness of spirit.” What does it mean to have our youthfulness of spirit renewed? The Gospel passage for this Sunday seems to be an apt illustration. The two disciples walking towards Emmaus are tired and discouraged; they have lost the bright hopefulness of youth, and their strength of faith has failed. Yet although they have abandoned their faith in Jesus, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.” as St. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Tim 2:13. Although they have given up on him, Jesus Christ does not cast off or forsake them, but meets them and walks with them along the way, slowly opening their eyes to understand the workings of God’s plan of redemption, the profound depths of meaning behind the apparently meaningless death of the one in whom they had put their hope, how it was necessary for human salvation that the Messiah should suffer these things.
When Jesus finally opens their eyes and reveals himself to them “in the breaking of the bread,” the two disciples are so fired with a renewed faith and a “renewed youthfulness of spirit” that they immediately arise and return the seven miles they had just traveled to Jerusalem, eager to share the joyful news.
As we, too, encounter the Risen Jesus “in the breaking of the bread,” the same phrase used in the book of Acts to describe the Eucharist, let us pray that he will renew our own youthfulness of spirit, “so that, rejoicing now in the restored glory of our adoption, we may look forward in confident hope to the rejoicing of the day of resurrection.”