3rd Sunday Easter 2008

Today’s Gospel opens with two friends walking along the road. It will be the occasion in which these same two friends meet with the risen Lord, hear him, see him and eat with him. They will return to their other friends and tell them what has happened to them.

These ones who are friends, make us think of the strange thing which friendships is. I don’t know if you will agree but friendship seems such a strange thing. Two people who are completely different can become friends. A friendship can last a whole life time. A friendship which seems so strong can end over the smallest of arguments. A friendship can be resumed after a number of years of not seeing one another, it is as if you have never been away from one another. Its such a strange thing friendship: how we are drawn to one person and them to us.

A friend is someone you can tell things to: what you think, what you feel, what is happening. A friend is someone you can laugh with, someone you can cry with, someone you can share things with. A friend is someone you meet with at your house, at their house, on the phone, at work, in the street. Between you and them is a bond, an unseen bond.

Who is your friend: your parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, childhood friend, work mate; neighbour, parishioner. You might know some people like them and are friendly to them but there are other people whom you know are your friends.

There are many challenges in friendship. The challenge to remain someone’s friend: to be loyal to them. There is the challenge not to destroy friendship, not taking it for granted. There is the challenge not to allow friendship to become exclusive, that blocks others out and becomes cliquish. There is the challenge not to use your friends. there is the challenge to use all your human and God given talents in friendship: care, understanding, forgiveness.

There is something that is very important about friendship for all of us. It makes us whole, complete that we are loved for and cared.

The scene in the Gospel is very important: two friends walking together, talking, sharing things together. It is a scene that could repeated in any time and in any place. But these two friends are about to be joined by another, who will warm their hearts by what he says so much so that they offer him their friendship, their table and their home.

In our life we have not only come to know human friendship but also the friendship of God. That experience, like the Gospel, that he comes and walks with us. That experience that he warms our hearts. That we in turn invite him to our homes, outr lives, to sits with us. First of all it is him who has chosen us as his friends. We have come to know his name, we have come to know how he acts, we have come to believe in him, our friendship for him has grown in our life, because he wants it. He loves us and we have come to love him.

If God makes friendship so important for us, as important as the bread we eat or the water that we drink. Is not the friendship of God essential for us. We couldn’t exist without the friendship of God. Is this not the desire of our life to know the friendship of God.

We know that he is not like any other friend we might have. He is the friend that we listen to and follow, he is the friend whose voice we seek. He is the one in our hearts who there is a deep yearning to know, to serve and love. As we hear in St John’s Gospel “he no longer calls us servants but I call you friends”.

To our own human friend we can talk, we can share we can confide. But how deeper all this becomes with God who is our friend. We can not tell him something he doesn’t know about us and yet we experience something deer than human friendship, deeper than the love of our best friend. A love that exists between the creator and the created. Is there not an echo of that in the love that a parent has for their child.

Tow friends walking along the road of Emmaus are joined by someone that they do not know. In the midst of our life and the road that we have walked have we not come to know the friendship of God.

Prayers of Intercession 3rd Easter

Priest

We pray to almighty God for all our needs confident that he can turn everything to what is good

Intercessor

We pray for God’s guidance for his Church here on earth – we pray that we may follow his promptings and not be led by our own passions and desires

Lord hear us

At this Easter we pray for a more peaceful world, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and in places where there is violence and bloodshed – that the God of peace may turn people’s hearts and minds to thoughts and works of peace and reconciliation.

Lord hear us

We remember all those who are struggling with personal problems in their lives – that God may give them all that they need to make the right choices in their lives.

Lord hear us

For all who have died recently and all those whose anniversaries we remember in prayer at this time.

Lord hear us

Priest

You are the one God. You are the God who are the source of everything. Your Spirit continues to be at work in the world and in our hearts, help us to listen to your Spirit and be directed by your hand top Comment on this Homily