Epsilon Complex Multimedia

‎📅 Apr. 19, 2026
‎🛐 Third Sunday of Easter (A)
‎👐 Vestment: 🤍
‎📕 Lectionary: 46
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‎❤️‍🔥 The road to Emmaus traveled by the two disciples is the path taken by those whose hopes in life have been crushed. Like the disciples, may we turn to the Lord and invite him: "Stay with us, Lord." May we recognize him in the Eucharist where he explains the Scriptures to us and breaks bread with us, setting our hearts on fire and making us witnesses that indeed he is truly risen and is alive in our midst.
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‎1️⃣ Reading I (Acts 2:14, 22-33 NABRE)
‎The greatest proof that he is indeed the Messiah of God is his resurrection from the dead. It is the core and the foundation of our faith.
‎📖 A reading from the Acts of the Apostles
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‎Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and proclaimed to them, “You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem. Let this be known to you, and listen to my words. You who are Israelites, hear these words. Jesus the Nazorean was a man commended to you by God with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs, which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, using lawless men to crucify him. But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it. For David says of him: ‘I saw the Lord ever before me, with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. Therefore my heart has been glad and my tongue has exulted; my flesh, too, will dwell in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.’ My brothers, one can confidently say to you about the patriarch David that he died and was buried, and his tomb is in our midst to this day. But since he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that neither was he abandoned to the netherworld nor did his flesh see corruption. God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses. Exalted at the right hand of God, he received the promise of the holy Spirit from the Father and poured it forth, as you [both] see and hear.”
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‎- The word of the Lord.
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‎🎼 Responsorial Psalm (Ps 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11)
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‎R. (11a) Lord, you will show us the path of life.
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‎1. Keep me, O God, for in you I take refuge;/ I say to the LORD, "My LORD are you."/ O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,/ you it is who hold fast my lot. (R)
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‎2. I bless the LORD who counsels me;/even in the night my heart exhorts me./ I set the Lord ever before me/with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed. (R)
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‎3. Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,/ my body, too, abides in confidence;/ because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,/ nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption. (R)
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‎4. You will show me the path to life,/abounding joy in your presence,/the delights at your right hand forever. (R)
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‎2️⃣ Reading II (1 Pt 1:17-21)
‎Our Christian faith and hope rest on Jesus who died and rose from the dead. With such a solid foundation we have no reason to be discouraged.
‎📖 A reading from the First Letter of Saint Peter
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‎{Beloved:} Now if you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each one’s works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb. He was known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
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‎- The word of the Lord.
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‎✝️ Gospel (Lk 24:13-35 NABRE)
‎📖 A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Luke
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‎(Now) that very day {of the first day of the week,} two of {Jesus’ disciples} were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
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‎- The Gospel of the Lord.
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‎💭 Today's Reflections
‎WHEN MEMORY MEETS MERCY
‎Fr. Albert Garong, SSP
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‎YOU KNOW THAT FEELING when a bad moment won't stop replaying in your head. Same scene, same words, same regret. Like a highlight reel, except it only plays your worst moments, showing you the part where you fell short, sounded foolish, hurt someone or lost someone, or where you failed yourself. A moment you wish you could undo, a chapter you wish you could skip—but keep rereading.
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‎In the Gospel, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus are caught in that exact mental loop, fresh from a story that ended the worst way possible. They are walking away from Jerusalem, caught up in a postmortem of a failed dream. They had hoped Jesus would be the one, but the Cross looked like a definitive dead end. So they do what we often do: put distance between ourselves and the site of our pain. It's time to leave.
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‎But Jesus won't let them—at least, not alone. He joins them, and as if to rub salt on wound, he asks them to recount their sorrow. Why force them to revisit what they are trying to outrun? Because recounting the pain to God is different from replaying it rent-free in our heads. When we ruminate alone, we are trapped in a monologue of despair. But when we speak our pain to Christ, it becomes a dialogue of grace. In this healing of memories, Jesus doesn't change the past; he changes the meaning of it. He shows them that the suffering they viewed as defeat was, in fact, the key to victory.
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‎We see St. Peter do the same in our First Reading. He stands before the very people who witnessed the Crucifixion, and he doesn't shy away from the painful memory. He recounts all of it, but with a difference: Peter is no longer speaking from a place of shame or fear. He can name the dark Friday of the Crucifixion because he is finally standing in the light of Sunday. He realizes that God uses that "dead end" to fulfill a plan that has always been in place.
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‎Perhaps this is what St. Peter means in the Second Reading when he says we were ransomed from our "futile conduct." Those futile loops we play in our heads—the ones that bring us down—are expensive lessons that Jesus has already paid for with his own blood. If Christ was willing to carry his wounds to reveal his love, he can certainly use your wounds to build his Kingdom.
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‎Easter is when God turns a dead end into a way forward, a shameful exit into a grace-filled return. The disciples go back to Jerusalem not because the past suddenly feels easy, but because it no longer holds them hostage. They return with hearts made brave by a presence that walked with them, and with a story healed enough to be shared.
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‎May Easter give us the courage to stop running from the places we associate with defeat. May we bring our memories to Jesus, not to punish ourselves, but to let him speak into them. And when he does, may our wounds become doors of mercy, so that we can recognize others who are still walking in the dark and quietly tell them: you are not alone, and this is not the end.
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‎Source: Sambuhay Missalette by St Pauls Media Pastoral Ministry
‎Provided by: Drich N. Sumcio
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