Homilies

March 27, 2008
Thursday of Easter Week
Acts 3:11-26; Luke 24:35-48
Fr. Marcellus Earl, OCSO

Way back in the second century, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, there was a man named Marcion who thought the Old Testament and the New Testament could not be reconciled and that the God of the Old Testament was not the God of the New Testament. He started his own sect and spread his false teaching abroad. As you would suspect this led to problems with those in authority in the Church and he was excommunicated. When Marcion met St. Polycarp he asked: "Do you recognize me?" To this the Saint replied, "I recognize you for the first born of Satan." (Cf. Iraeneus, Adv. haer. 3.3.4)

Marcion not only rejected the books of the Old Testament, he also expurgated those parts of the New Testament that could not be reconciled with his opinions. He based his teaching on St. Luke's Gospel and most of St. Paul's Letters. The pity is that Marcion was not here to listen to today's readings for they make clear to anyone with an open mind that the Old Testament and the New are intimately bound together. Indeed one wonders how he missed the passage at the end of today's Gospel which just happens to be from St. Luke.

In this Gospel reading Jesus has just appeared to the disciples and thrown them into confusion thinking he was a ghost. After he had calmed them down and even eaten a piece of cooked fish, he recalled to them that while he had been with them he had told them that all the things found in the law of Moses, the psalms and the prophets had to be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Old Testament Scriptures. This recalls the beautiful passage we had yesterday about the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. He said they were slow to believe all that had been written about him in the Scriptures. He went right through the Old Testament pointing out to them the various places that spoke of him, and later on the two disciples professed that their hearts were on fire within them as he explained the Scriptures to them.

Now this passage alone should have been enough to show Marcion that his opinions were false, but in addition the First Reading would have delivered a knockout blow. It says that after healing a lame man Peter takes the opportunity to tell the crowd that had gathered that all that had happened regarding the death and resurrection of the Messiah had been foretold. He added that all the prophets from Samuel on spoke of the things that had happened in those days.

The Scriptures are a profound unity, my brothers and sisters. In the Old Testament Almighty God spoke to the Israelites forming them into his own people to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah and universal redemption through the passion and death of Christ. These prophecies along with the miracles that Jesus worked give us solid evidence for the faith we profess. The more we read the Old and New Testaments the more we will discover that they support one another and give us a deeper understanding of the truth of God's revelation. We can compare them to our two eyes. A person with just one eye lacks depth perception, but a person with two eyes can determine the relative distance of various objects. So it is with us, if we read both Testaments we can come to a greater depth of understanding of the truth they contain than if we read just one or the other.

It is clear from the passages we have considered so briefly that God considers all the books of the Bible to be important for us. Indeed, why else would he have inspired them? So we can be sure they are of very great value to each of us, but only if we read them, and the more diligently and perseveringly that we do so, the more fruit will be produced, and the greater will be the glory we give to God.