3rd Sunday of Easter Year C

‘It is the Lord!’
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.
We are still in the season of the full joy of the Resurrection, and our scripture readings lead us to a deepening of our faith and an understanding of this great mystery.
In the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear Peter speaking boldly to the high priest, confirming the faith of the early Christians, witnesses of the death and resurrection of Christ, and declaring their firm obedience to their Lord.
We can pray the Psalm with the risen Christ as he praises God for rescuing him from death and restoring him to life.
St John, in the Second Reading, takes us up with him into his vision of the Lamb being praised by all the heavenly hosts.
The Gospel gives us the wonderful account of Jesus’s appearance by the Sea of Tiberias. It is rich with the reactions of the disciples, and with echoes of their earlier relationship with Jesus. It also looks forward to their apostolic and pastoral ministries.
May the readings this week help us to discover the risen Lord in our daily lives and lead us to witness to him.
‘It is the Lord!’