Luke 24: 13-35
Dear Friends,
This is the third of seven weeks in the Easter Season. The Resurrection stories and the Gospel reflections all invite us to enter into the mystery of the risen Christ. It is a journey from the head to the heart.
Today’s story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is especially heartfelt. The two disciples tell the story to Jesus. For them it is a profound tragedy. They are frustrated and floundering in a world of shattered dreams. Their story conveys pain and hopelessness. In particular, they pass over the message of the women with the account of the empty tomb and the angels.
Jesus takes their story and transforms it into a message of hope and life. He showed that the mystery of the Cross unveiled the deepest level of reality. In God’s wisdom weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death gives way to life everlasting. This is the story of the Alleluia! “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?’” (Lk 24:32)
In the disciples’ experience we have a fundamental insight into the Christian life. We need to measure the Gospel story against our life experience. Sooner or later, we run up against the common human fate of broken dreams, love rejected and the multiple consequences of our mortality. Much of our life’s efforts tries to cover all the contingencies but in the end we are not ready for what life has in store for us. Who could ever really envision the coronavirus and its impact on our world? Or who could believe the number of mass shootings being greater than the number of days in the year? We are like the disciples engulfed in dreams of great things coming from Jesus, the one who would be their savior. Yet, like them, our vision of life holds no room for the rejection and Passion and Crucifixion on that fateful weekend.
Comparable to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we have to bring faith to the story. With faith we enter the story of the Scriptures and slowly we see that God is with us all along. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Luke uses the phrase “opened eyes” six of the eight times It appears in the New Testament. It is always about the journey from the head to the heart. “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.” (Lk 24:31-32) When we recognize Jesus, we begin to see the Resurrection for what it is. The victory of love over all. All is not lost. Indeed, the victory is ours when we walk with Jesus. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Thomas Merton has a beautiful definition of prayer: Prayer is yearning to be in the presence of God, a personal understanding of His Word, knowledge of His will and the capacity to hear and obey. This is what happened to the disciples in their encounter with Jesus. They were walking away from life. They were fleeing the difficulty of their broken dreams. God’s grace opened the eyes of their heart to the fire of love that was there all the time. Now, they were ready to return to Jerusalem and do God’s work.
The power of deep personal prayer can do the same for us. We can begin to see reality as pregnant with hope and new possibilities once we encounter the Risen Christ in deep and trusting faith. We need the Word of God to enter into the gracious presence. We need the Word of God to give us direction on the road so we too can find our way back to the Jerusalem that is God’s loving plan for us. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Prayer needs to lead us to the Eucharistic encounter where we meet Jesus in the Word and Sacrament. In telling the story in God’s Word and breaking the bread, God touches the depth of the heart with the Bread of Life that is the risen Savior on ‘our road to Emmaus’, the struggle of our daily life.
Faith lets us see that Jesus turning the story of the two disciples and our story upside down as he did with so many experiences in his gospel teachings. Through the mystery of the Cross, he unveiled the deepest level of reality. In in this revelation of God’s wisdom, weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death opens the way to life that is everlasting. This is the story of the Alleluia!
This is the third of seven weeks in the Easter Season. The Resurrection stories and the Gospel reflections all invite us to enter into the mystery of the risen Christ. It is a journey from the head to the heart.
Today’s story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is especially heartfelt. The two disciples tell the story to Jesus. For them it is a profound tragedy. They are frustrated and floundering in a world of shattered dreams. Their story conveys pain and hopelessness. In particular, they pass over the message of the women with the account of the empty tomb and the angels.
Jesus takes their story and transforms it into a message of hope and life. He showed that the mystery of the Cross unveiled the deepest level of reality. In God’s wisdom weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death gives way to life everlasting. This is the story of the Alleluia! “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?’” (Lk 24:32)
In the disciples’ experience we have a fundamental insight into the Christian life. We need to measure the Gospel story against our life experience. Sooner or later, we run up against the common human fate of broken dreams, love rejected and the multiple consequences of our mortality. Much of our life’s efforts tries to cover all the contingencies but in the end we are not ready for what life has in store for us. Who could ever really envision the coronavirus and its impact on our world? Or who could believe the number of mass shootings being greater than the number of days in the year? We are like the disciples engulfed in dreams of great things coming from Jesus, the one who would be their savior. Yet, like them, our vision of life holds no room for the rejection and Passion and Crucifixion on that fateful weekend.
Comparable to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we have to bring faith to the story. With faith we enter the story of the Scriptures and slowly we see that God is with us all along. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Luke uses the phrase “opened eyes” six of the eight times It appears in the New Testament. It is always about the journey from the head to the heart. “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.” (Lk 24:31-32) When we recognize Jesus, we begin to see the Resurrection for what it is. The victory of love over all. All is not lost. Indeed, the victory is ours when we walk with Jesus. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Thomas Merton has a beautiful definition of prayer: Prayer is yearning to be in the presence of God, a personal understanding of His Word, knowledge of His will and the capacity to hear and obey. This is what happened to the disciples in their encounter with Jesus. They were walking away from life. They were fleeing the difficulty of their broken dreams. God’s grace opened the eyes of their heart to the fire of love that was there all the time. Now, they were ready to return to Jerusalem and do God’s work.
The power of deep personal prayer can do the same for us. We can begin to see reality as pregnant with hope and new possibilities once we encounter the Risen Christ in deep and trusting faith. We need the Word of God to enter into the gracious presence. We need the Word of God to give us direction on the road so we too can find our way back to the Jerusalem that is God’s loving plan for us. This is the story of the Alleluia!
Prayer needs to lead us to the Eucharistic encounter where we meet Jesus in the Word and Sacrament. In telling the story in God’s Word and breaking the bread, God touches the depth of the heart with the Bread of Life that is the risen Savior on ‘our road to Emmaus’, the struggle of our daily life.
Faith lets us see that Jesus turning the story of the two disciples and our story upside down as he did with so many experiences in his gospel teachings. Through the mystery of the Cross, he unveiled the deepest level of reality. In in this revelation of God’s wisdom, weakness gives way to true power, emptiness expresses the fullness of God’s presence and death opens the way to life that is everlasting. This is the story of the Alleluia!
