Message of Abbot Paul - Easter Thursday 13th April 2023

It was a great joy yesterday to visit my mother and enjoy an Italian Easter together. Every region, town and village in Italy has its own traditional Easter dishes. It’s amazing how in wettest and windiest Wales, an extremely old lady can still conjure up the authentic flavours of Perugia that so delight the palate and the stomach. The weather going down took us through all four seasons from near-freezing temperatures and snow on The Blorenge above Abergavenny, a severe hailstorm with hailstones that appeared to be the size of golf balls as they crashed against the windscreen, torrential rain and savage winds, and then the calm of sunshine and fluffy spring clouds. After passing Neath, the traffic became pure chaos, as drivers discovered that the M4 was closed: there had been no advance warning of this and it added an hour to our journey in the last few miles. As always, for God is good to Toby, the weather brightened up around 2.30, enabling me to take him down to the beach for a good two hours. There we met an old school friend, who returned to live locally after retirement. It was cold and windy but exhilarating, and we were the only three to venture onto the beach.

 

​Our Gospel passage from Luke, (Lk 24: 35-48), takes up the story of the two disciples, Cleopas and his companion, who “told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised Jesus at the breaking of bread.” Luke’s account continues with the appearance of Jesus to all the disciples gathered together. You will notice some similarities with the account in John 20, where Jesus appears to ten apostles, locked for fear in the Upper Room, when Thomas is missing. “They were still talking about all this when Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’ In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, ‘Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.’ And as he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes.” Isn’t it strange how even those closest to Jesus fail to recognise him on that first Easter day? They are frightened out of their wits and think they’re seeing a ghost.

 

​Then Jesus explains the scriptures to them, as he had done to the two on the road to Emmaus. “Then he told them, ‘This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled.’ He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.’” His resurrection is the fulfilment of the scriptures and they are now witnesses to this, but they must witness to Jesus by bringing others to salvation through faith in him, so that all peoples can have their sins forgiven. This means that you and I are also witnesses. I wonder if we are fulfilling the task given us by Jesus after his resurrection?