Rejoice when others receive Easter blessings

April 23, Saturday, Octave of Easter
Daily Readings: Acts. 4:13-21, Gospel: John 16: 9-15

With that welcoming attitude, we open the channels to receive more and more. Celebrate and thank God for the blessings others receive, and our lives will start receiving unexpected blessings. And our joy can be multiplied.

After Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, she tells his disciples as they mourned and wept, but they won’t believe that he was alive and had met her. Disciples, whom Jesus met while walking through the countryside, went and told the other disciples, who were sitting inside the closed room, that Jesus had met them. They refused to believe them as well.

Were they of generous and selfless hearts, the possible different responses could have been:

1. Mary, we rejoice with you. What a lucky person you are!
2. Oh my goodness, this is fantastic news! Our master has risen! He has, as he told us, defeated death! He is truly the Son of God.
3. We see you are coming straight from your encounter with him. Thank you, Mary, for bringing this fresh news to us first. We are blessed because we are the first ones he asked you to share it with.
4. Can you tell how thoughtful he is? He already had a plan for us to meet up in Galilee.
5. Could you share a little more about your experience? What did Jesus look like? Can we easily make him out? Does he look more like God now? You have created more eagerness in us as we wait for our encounter.

When we fail to appreciate the positive happenings in others' lives, we are at the same time becoming smaller in stature, and the life of abundance stops flowing towards us.

Let us learn to rejoice when others receive Easter blessings!