The Burning Joy of Jubilation

Third Sunday of Easter

Reflecting on the Word

By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger

Jesus is risen! Joy, exultation, a grand hurrah! And resounding  alleluias! The disciples running back to Jerusalem are jubilant! As  they run, they shout to each other, “Were not our hearts burning  within us when we walked on the road with him?” Jesus is alive! 

Teresa of Ávila, the mystic, felt that jubilation, too. In her  autobiography, she described that an angel thrust a long spear, tipped  with fire, into her heart. As the point was being drawn out, she was  left all on fire with a great love of God. That painful but sweet caress  of love left her in bliss for many days. 

Do modern day folks ever feel that inner burning? I wonder . . . On occasion I’ve had a bad cough and my lungs felt like they were  burning. But that is not it. 

When something is deeply unjust, the heat of righteous indignation  can fire up the gut to do something to make things right. But that is  not it either. 

What is this burning of jubilation? 

A young man once shared with me that he had experienced that  burning in his heart one time, as he watched his bride come up the  aisle. Happiness and gratitude and love all rushed together to create  a fiery jubilation inside. 

A mother described the touch of the tiny fingers of the two-day old child who so recently had been inside of her. Her heart swelled  with the warmth of jubilation. 

A husband has talked of how his heart burned with joy when his  wife came home from the hospital, healed. Gratitude and love and  relief all flooded together into the jubilation of having more days  together.

This burning of the heart in jubilation is the opposite of Good  Friday’s burden of the heart in sorrow. It is a foretaste of heaven.  Death is not life’s final answer. Jesus is risen! We too will be raised!  God be praised! 

Consider/Discuss 

  • Some scholars suggest that the second of the disciples on the road to  Emmaus is unnamed in order to allow us to be that traveler on the road.  When have you been that disciple, and felt your heart burning with  jubilation within you? 
  • Resurrection is more glorious than we could ever imagine. Yet sometimes  we allow ourselves to be satisfied with just a bland or dulled hope. How  could we grow more fervent in living new life? 

Living and Praying with the Word 

Jesus, we taste the sweetness of your blessed fire so rarely. Though  the joys of heaven are never ending, maybe the reason that we don’t  feel that more often is that we couldn’t handle more glory on a  regular basis. But thank you for the moments when your joy breaks  through into our lives. Thank you for love and friendship and the  sharing of bread and the little touches of ways that you reveal to us  the glory of heaven. Come, be with us now. Our hearts want to burn  with your love.

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