First Reading - Acts 2:14,22-33
Second Reading - 1 Peter 1:17-21
Gospel - Luke 24:13-35
The readings of today teach us that: No matter what happens in our lives, the risen Jesus is always with us. God is always near to those who seek Him and want to live in His presence, doing His will.
The first reading, from Acts, taken from the beginning of Peter’s first public proclamation about Jesus, tells us how God raised Jesus from death, thus fulfilling the Messianic prophecies about the promised descendant of David. The Refrain for today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 16), has us singing, “Lord, You will show us the path of Life.”
In the second reading, Peter exhorts the early Church, made up of Hebrew and pagan converts, to place their Faith and Hope in God Who has saved them through the precious Blood of His Son, and Who has raised Jesus from the dead. Peter repeats the assertion made in Acts, that Jesus’ death and Resurrection was part of God’s plan from all eternity. Hence, Jesus’ sufferings and subsequent glorification by God should serve to center the Christian’s Faith and Hope in God Who has accepted those sufferings as an act of Redemption for all mankind. From this reassuring truth, Christians should sense God’s providence, both in their own current situations and in the whole of their lives, and they should understand the place of their present struggles in a wider context. The root of our Faith must be the Resurrection of Jesus, and Peter argues that it is essential for everyone in the Christian community to experience the risen Jesus alive and present in everyday life.
The Emmaus incident described in today’s Gospel shows us a God who will not abandon us when we are hurt and disappointed. Luke’s Emmaus story teaches us that (1) Jesus’ death and Resurrection fit God’s purpose as revealed in the Scriptures; (2) the risen Jesus is present in the Word of God and especially in the Breaking of the Bread; 3) suffering was necessary for the Messiah “to enter into his glory”; and 4) we have a risen Savior, One Who personally walks with us in our daily paths, talks with us through His Word and with Whom we can talk through prayer. He is the One Who opens our minds to understand and respond to His Word. (The bishops at the Second Vatican Council recorded these compelling words which are still deeply relevant to the Church today: ‘The Church has always venerated the Divine Scriptures just as it venerates the Body of the Lord, since from the table both of the Word of God and of the Body of Christ it unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the Bread of Life. It has always regarded the Scriptures together with sacred tradition as the supreme rule of Faith and will ever do so” (Dei Verbum 21). Jesus is with us, is concerned about us, and provides for us regardless of what life may bring. Further, the Father, at Jesus’ request, has given us the Holy Spirit so that we may teach others about Him. Let us, therefore, with the perception of His presence, walk with Jesus, talk with Him, depend on Him, worship Him, and tell others about Him.
Dear friends, Jesus meets us on our Emmaus Road. The risen Lord meets us on the road to our Emmaus, both in the ordinary experiences of our lives, and in the places to which we retreat when life is too much for us. We, too, have hopes and dreams about better health, healing, financial security and better family relationships. These often shatter. The story promises us, however, that Jesus will come to us in unfamiliar guises to support and strengthen us when we least expect the risen Lord. Emmaus moments come to us when we meet the risen Christ on our life’s journey through rough times.
We meet Jesus on a daily basis in our life’s journey. The Church instructs us to hear Jesus on a daily basis through prayer, through the faithful reading of, and meditation on, the Bible, through our experience of Jesus as we participate in the Eucharistic celebration in which the risen Lord gives us Himself as our spiritual Food and Drink, through our personal and family prayers, and through our family meals. When we meet Jesus in the Eucharist and through the Word of God, we commune with him in prayer, and thus renew our relationship of mutual loving service. These meetings enable us to encounter the risen Jesus living in all the people we meet and, in them, to offer our Lord humble, loving, selfless service.
Do our hearts burn when we listen to the risen Lord in the Bible? Christ comes to us most clearly in the Word. Vatican II (Dei Verbum 21) tells us that Jesus is to be equally venerated in the Eucharist and in the Bible. Therefore, we need to study the Bible, learn the Bible, pray with the Bible, memorize the Bible, meditate on the word of God with burning zeal, and practice what the Bible teaches.
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