In Giving We Receive

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Wednesday in Easter Week

Today's Readings:
[ Acts 3:1-10; Ps 105:1-9; Lk 24:13-35 ]

There is a quiet, earthy beauty running through today’s readings... a holiness that meets us not in spectacle, but in the ordinary places of life.

In Acts, Peter and John encounter a man who has known nothing but limitation. He asks for alms, expecting coins, but instead receives something far greater: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk”. The healing is not just physical—it is relational and restorative. He enters the temple “walking and leaping and praising God,” restored to community and worship.

From a Franciscan perspective, this moment reveals the dignity already present in the man. Francis of Assisi saw every person as bearing the image of Christ, often hidden beneath suffering or poverty. Peter does not give from excess; he gives from communion with Christ. “What I have I give you.” This is the poverty of spirit Francis embraced—not emptiness, but radical dependence on God that overflows into generosity. Thus does the well-known 'Prayer of St Francis' state "it is in giving that we receive."

Psalm 105 calls us to “seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually.” This seeking is not abstract. It happens in the dust of roads, at temple gates, in shared meals.

And that brings us to the road to Emmaus. The disciples walk with Jesus and do not recognize him. Their eyes are kept from seeing. How often do we miss Christ walking beside us, especially in disappointment or confusion?

It is only in the breaking of bread that their eyes are opened.

Franciscan spirituality invites us into this same attentiveness: to see Christ in the poor, in creation, in Scripture, and in the Eucharist. The risen Christ is not distant. He is hidden in plain sight, in conversation, in need, in the stranger on the road.

Today’s invitation is simple, but not easy: to live with open eyes and open hands. To give not just what is convenient, but what we have received from Christ. And to trust that even when we do not recognize him, our hearts can still burn within us.

Walk the road. Break the bread. Look again.

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