The Word Of Peace
Homiletic Reflections On Peacemaking

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti

Third Sunday of Easter - 1999

Emmaus-Stranger

Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee said in an interview in the magazine, "The Critic": If young people are having an identity problem as Catholics, I tell them to do two things: Go to Mass every Sunday, and work in a soup kitchen. If one does those two things over a period of time, then something will happen to give one a truly Catholic identity. The altar and the marketplace--these two--must be related to each other; when they are one works better, and one prays better."

These remarks by Archbishop Weakland draw our attention to the presence of the stranger. On the one hand, we are called to welcome the stranger on the way. On the other hand, we are also called to seek them out. Who are the strangers in our midst ? I mean, "who are they !?" Well, they are none other than Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord. Jesus who comes to us and tells us of the story of his suffering, of the suffering of God at the hands of human beings.

The story still goes on. As we have observed these past four weeks a war rages in Kosovo and Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Now hundreds of thousands of refugees and dead soldiers and civilians, complete strangers to us, have grasped the world's attention in their desperate situation of being run out of town by the murderous forces and death squads of the Serbian government and the bombing of Belgrade. We are once again witnessing an episode of "ethnic-cleansing." Such action rests on a fundamental assumption of a tribal "we-they" view of the world. It is a view that says, "if you are not one of us, you're the enemy, and we may do what we wish to you !" It is a view of the world that denies the fundamental solidarity of all human beings--and this lays the foundation and justification for extermination--the suffering of people, the suffering of the Lord in the world.

But this is Easter ! We look for the risen Lord in our midst--in the midst of the effects of the machinations of those who deny life ! In Luke we hear of where the two men met Jesus, on the way, listening to the Scriptures and in the breaking of bread, then he vanished ! Interesting, almost peculiar...This journey on the way is the Christian journey of faith we travel with others. We meet Jesus along this way in the Word of Scripture that sensitizes us to see him in our lives. He tells us, "look at the whole pattern of Scripture, see the places where the Father shows mercy, compassion, and even goes into exile with the people and you will see the Father's work again in the Son--in the cruciform love of the cross!

We encounter Jesus in the broken bread for others around the table; and we see him most pointedly when one offers him or herself for the life of others ! We see the Lord when we welcome the stranger and when we seek them out!

The crucified and the risen One is alive and working to transform the world through the Church in a special way. The resurrection message is also one of mission then, isn't it ? In order to "see" Jesus, know Jesus, we are to be engaged with all of life, the destiny of others and the destiny of the world. The risen One calls us to bring the life -giving force of resurrection to the world. We know that it is not simply a matter of sending aid to the refugees in Kosovo or the streets of Bristol, through this is required of us ! It is also about doing the hard work to prevent hunger, war, ethnic-cleansing. That is not easy and not cheap. It means caring enough to suffer the tedium of endless study, it means hours of reflection, prayer and action. It means suffering a cost through which the power of the risen Christ can shine through in our world--in our welcoming and seeking out the stranger on the way. They may be from Kosovo, or may be a child in Belgrade, or a homeless person in Hartford--these are such places to see him-- seeing him on the face of the other.

Deacon Robert M. Pallotti, D. Min.
Uploaded January 14, 2000