From the Pastor&#039;s Desk: April 23, 2023

From the Pastor’s Desk: April 23, 2023

On the Third Sunday of Easter, the Church gives us another appearance of Christ in His risen body. It's one of the best-known and great passages of the New Testament. It is the famous road to Emmaus account. In a little over 20 verses, it summarizes the whole Christian life. The story begins on Easter Sunday with two disciples on the road leaving Jerusalem. For Luke the focal point of Jesus’ mission is Jerusalem – it was the goal to which all Jesus’ public life was headed and from there the new community would bring His Message to the rest of the world.

These two disciples– Cleopas and his companion– are on the “road” – they are pilgrims on the road of life. Jesus is the Way, the Road. The Risen Jesus joins them as a fellow traveler. “Something” prevents them from recognizing Him, however. What was that “something”? Was it their presumption that He was dead? Was it their preconceived idea of what Jesus should look like? Seeing their obvious despondency and disillusionment, Jesus asks what they are talking about. With deliciously unconscious irony they say, “You must be the only person staying in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have been happening there these last few days.”

They left behind the empty tomb of which the women told them about. They expressed ignorance and lack of faith in the Scriptures and God’s promise foretold through the prophets about the upcoming Messiah. It was defeat, lack of trust, and fear that dictated their actions and decision to go the “wrong” way on their pilgrimage of life. And yet, Jesus meets them where they are in their brokenness and in their lack of faith and in their doubt that they had after the crucifixion, and Jesus slowly “opens up” their hearts and minds beginning with Moses and the prophets, He interpreted to them what referred to Him in all in the Scriptures. We can only imagine the kind of experience the two disciples encountered, but it had to be somehow powerful since they did not want it to stop. “Stay with us, it is evening, and the day is now far spent.”

This generous invitation transformed their lives once and forever. “So, He went in to stay with them. When He was at table with them, He took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished out of their sight.” The same four actions that He celebrated at the Last Supper, when the Lord instituted the Eucharist, are reenacted here - He took the bread, He blessed the bread, He broke the bread, and He gave the bread. It is at this very moment – the moment of the Eucharistic Bread that “their eyes were open, and He vanished out of their site, and they recognized Him.”

So, why does Jesus vanish? Why does He disappear? Because the Eucharist is the central truth and reality of our Christian way of life. He comes to us, as He came to the two disciples celebrating the First Mass after His Resurrection - under the appearance of bread and wine, under the appearance of the Eucharist, so that He can be with them always and everywhere – from Poland to India; from Rome to the United States, and everywhere in between. Because in every Eucharist, we reenact that Easter Sunday at Emmaus. Jesus reveals Himself to us on our journey. He speaks to our hearts in the Scriptures. Then at the table of the altar, in the person of the priest, He breaks the bread.

This Sunday invites us to reflect upon our faith in the Eucharist. It invites us to reflect upon our relationship with the Lord and our own invitation to Him to stay with us, so on the pilgrimage of life, we, too, will recognize Him in the Eucharist, in the breaking of the bread.

At Easter, we shared with everyone a Book by Matthew Kelly, “The Wisdom of the Saints.” I hope you are making good and daily use of it. “Let us not forget that Jesus not only suffered, but also rose in glory, so, too, we go to the glory of the resurrection by the way of suffering on the cross.”

I wish you a blessed week in the season of Easter!

With prayers,

Fr. Andy