Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

 Introduction 

For oth­ers, the Paschal feast is over, but not for the Cath­ol­ic Church. Litur­gic­ally, the Cath­ol­ic Church is still in the Paschal peri­od. The Sunday read­ings con­tin­ue to present to us the fol­low-up of Jesus’ resur­rec­tion. After the bold­ness of the apostles, Luke presents the meet­ing of Jesus with two dis­ap­poin­ted dis­ciples who were going back to their town, Emmaus. Last week, we under­lined com­mu­nion as the first fruit of the resur­rec­tion. Because they devoted them­selves to the teach­ings of the apostles; to koinōnia – fel­low­ship; to the break­ing of bread; and to pray­ers, believ­ers lived in com­mu­nion with one anoth­er, shar­ing everything. Jesus’ resur­rec­tion must break every wall of divi­sion among Chris­ti­ans else, our cel­eb­ra­tion of the resur­rec­tion is in vain. Although the high priests sternly warned the apostles not to men­tion the name Jesus in their teach­ings, they con­tin­ued to propag­ate it, mak­ing people under­stand the need to accept the Gos­pel. As they rightly reminded the Jew­ish offi­cials, it is bet­ter to obey God than to obey mere mor­tals (Acts 5:27–33), espe­cially when they are godless.

On disappointment

Accord­ing to its Dic­tion­ary defin­i­tion, dis­ap­point­ment is sad­ness or dis­pleas­ure caused by the non-ful­fil­ment of one’s hopes or expect­a­tions. Accord­ing to its ety­mo­logy, dis­ap­point­ment lit­er­ally means to be removed from office. We can ima­gine the state of such a per­son. Psy­cho­logy per­ceives dis­ap­point­ment as the psy­cho­lo­gic­al reac­tion to an out­come that does not match up to expect­a­tions. Dis­ap­point­ment recov­ery time var­ies from per­son to per­son. I have been ima­gin­ing the men­tal status of these dis­ciples who were trav­el­ling back to their coun­try. They were like fish out of water. Dis­ap­poin­ted, frus­trated, depressed, stressed, annoyed, embittered, infuri­ated, dis­or­i­ented, and shattered. All because they had the wrong con­cep­tion of Jesus and his mis­sion. They were expect­ing what they ought not to have expec­ted. How often do we fix our minds on the wrong side? It is true we may not com­pletely avoid dis­ap­point­ment, but we can lim­it it. The only way to avoid being dis­ap­poin­ted is to align our expect­a­tions with real­ity. Our expect­a­tions are often utopian.

Conclusion

Some­times we see things the way they are not. In such instances, our reac­tions are bound to be con­di­tioned and even biased. Often, we wish things happened accord­ing to our cal­cu­la­tions. We have our expect­a­tions even when we appear before God in pray­er. And when this does not hap­pen, we feel the world has turned against us and we begin to com­plain, lament and become agit­ated. Because we think God has for­saken us, we begin to pros­ti­tute about, search­ing for mir­acles, prosper­ity, and the so-called aka nchawa. In such situ­ations, we become easy prey to the god­less who parade them­selves as men and women of God, when in real­ity, they are lions roar­ing the cit­ies look­ing for those to devour (cf. 1Pet 5:8). Wrong approach will always lead to wrong solu­tions and even worsen the individual’s con­di­tion. Stop pro­ject­ing your ideals into things and into people, espe­cially when these can­not be accom­plished. Such an atti­tude will not allow you to under­stand things and people prop­erly. And you will always be dis­ap­poin­ted. Like the apostles, we must be fear­less in speak­ing the truth, because as Jesus said, only the truth shall set us free. Thank God for guid­ing us through the month of April. Be optim­ist­ic in life and avoid the com­pany of pess­im­ists. Sha­lom!                   

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 3^rd Sunday of Pascha is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 242–248. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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