Wednesday April 20, 2022

Octave of Easter Wednesday

 

Walking With the Lord

            It may happen to us, as to the disciples on Emmaus, that we are discouraged and disillusioned on our pilgrim of life. Without being aware of the Lord’s presence, we travel, we converse with strangers or friends, we eat meals, we are indifferent or have little hope. But questioned by the words and the presence of the Risen Lord, we journey forward with him as our brother and Lord, we recognize him with one another and particularly in our Eucharistic assemblies. We become a people of hope. We recognize him when we break bread for one another. And when we share what we have with one another. And if so, people may perhaps recognize him also in us. Like the lame man in the first reading, we get on our feet, jump about with joy and hope, and praise God in word and deed.

 

First Reading: Acts 3:1-10 

One day at three o’clock in the afternoon, Peter and John were on their way into the Temple for prayer meeting. At the same time there was a man crippled from birth being carried up. Every day he was set down at the Temple gate, the one named Beautiful, to beg from those going into the Temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter the Temple, he asked for a handout. Peter, with John at his side, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Look here.” He looked up, expecting to get something from them.

Peter said, “I don’t have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” He grabbed him by the right hand and pulled him up. In an instant his feet and ankles became firm. He jumped to his feet and walked.

The man went into the Temple with them, walking back and forth, dancing and praising God. Everybody there saw him walking around and praising God. They recognized him as the one who sat begging at the Temple’s Gate Beautiful and rubbed their eyes, astonished, scarcely believing what they were seeing.

 

Gospel: Luke 24:13-35 

That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was.

He asked, “What’s this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?”

They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?”

He said, “What has happened?”

They said, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn’t see Jesus.”

Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.

They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.

 Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?”

A Ghost Doesn’t Have Muscle and Bone

They didn’t waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: “It’s really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!”

Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.

 

Prayer

God, our Father,
you are a God not of the dead
nor of those paralyzed by their fears and limitations
but the God of the living.
Raise us up and make us walk forward
in joy and hope,
as companions on the road
of him, whom you raised from the dead,
Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord for ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

We were hoping…but

The Emmaus incident is recorded only in the Gospel according to Luke. The two disciples who were crestfallen over the murder of their Master are now leaving Jerusalem. The risen Christ encounters them on their way but they could not recognise him. We remember the story of Lazarus who returned from death but he was the same, as he had been before he died. But the Risen Christ is in his Glorified form and it is not merely returning to the previous form of life.

The walk to Emmaus is every disciple’s walk into the disappointment served up at times in life. Disciples are necessarily the ones who hope, who believe that things will be better and strive to bring justice and compassion to the world. But they can also be so easily disappointed. And at times losing all hopes for a way out. It was to such disciples that Jesus came, unrecognised but with total understanding of their hopelessness.

Their dreams had been shattered by the shame and humiliation of the cross and they are now walking in sadness. How many times have we been like those two on the road, uttering those same words: “We were hoping that He was the one to save us?” Now, those hopes are shattered. Similar things happen in our lives too: We were hoping that the marriage would have remained intact and the family be united. We were hoping that wars, violence and terrorism would have ceased. We were hoping that our children would have remained with us at home and they would stay in the Church. We were hoping we would have better political and economic situations.

The disciples’ hopes had been shattered. They had moved into depression, as it happens with us when we face failures in life. The risen Christ goes in search of the ones who are walking away. Reminds them that he hasn’t gone anywhere, rather he walks with them all the time. By narrating this story Luke was explaining the work of the Risen Christ in the Christian community ever since the resurrection event.

It is in the act of Breaking of the Bread that they recognised their Master. Both, the explanation of the Scripture on the road and Breaking of the Bread in the evening constituted that day’s Eucharist. And that changed them. They would never be the same again.

When we encounter the Lord in the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist and with the assurance that he is walking with us and among those around us, we cannot be the same again.

 

Video available on Youtube: We were hoping…but