During the forty days of Lent, many of the Scripture passages read at Mass showed that the Messiah must suffer and die (see Lk 24:26-27). If we have listened to the Lenten readings as intently as the two disciples on the road to Emmaus listened to Jesus, our hearts would have been burning all throughout Lent as we heard these readings (Lk 24:32). Instead of a seven-mile Bible walk to Emmaus, we took a forty-day Bible walk through the Lenten desert.
Now Jesus challenges us to take another fifty-day Bible walk throughout the Easter season. The Church offers us a sequel to the Lenten Scripture story. In the first four days of this second Bible walk, the Church offers the equivalent of a movie trailer: God pours out the Holy Spirit on all mankind (Acts 2:33), three-thousand people receive the Spirit at Pentecost and join the Church (Acts 2:41), and the apostles use the gifts of the Spirit to heal a man crippled from birth (Acts 3:2, 7). The fifty-day Bible sequel only gets better in the next forty-six days!
The forty- and fifty-day Bible walks are essential to our preparation to receive a new outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. Get on your Bible-walking shoes and attend as many of the Masses of the Easter season as possible. Absorb the Easter Scriptures. Don't miss "the rest of the story."
| PRAYER: | Father, may I desire to read the daily Easter Scripture readings far more than I've ever anticipated a movie or book sequel. |
| PROMISE: | "He interpreted for them every passage of Scripture which referred to Him." –Lk 24:27 |
| PRAISE: | Praise the risen Jesus, Who pours out His Spirit upon us. |
Reprinted with permission from Presentation Ministries, a lay association of the Catholic Church that focuses on evangelization and discipleship through Bible teaching, daily Mass, the charisms of the Holy Spirit, and Small Christian Community. Their ministries include:
· One Bread, One Body
· Daily Bread Radio Program
· Annual Bible Institute
· Discipleship Retreats
· Guadalupe Bible College