Sunday 23rd April 2023 - Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 2:14,22-33/Psalm 15(16)/ 1 Peter 1:17-21/ Luke 24:13-35

In the Gospel today we hear about the two disciples walking away from Jerusalem and all that had just happened there. They are in a despondent mood because their own expectations had been dashed with the arrest and death of Jesus. I find it easy these days to become despondent. I had become a bit of a news junky almost addicted to listening to the news several times a day. As Covid took hold and the build up to the Ukrainian war began, to say nothing of the many challenges faced locally, I limited my news intake to once a day and then tried not to dwell on things I have little or no influence over. With all that is going on around us it is easy to join the two disciples on the road of despondency that leads us away from the security and optimism that the Risen Lord holds out to us through his death and resurrection. We can find ourselves wandering aimlessly along a path leading away from the truth and towards a wilderness filled with empty promises and misinformation.

There are many wonderful things we can discover in today’s Gospel passage. One of them is that the risen Jesus is with us however far away from him we think we have strayed. We may not always recognise him, but he is there walking alongside us. Another is that it can be seen as a description of our pilgrimage through this life. As we live out our lives we can meander from time to time, sometimes close to the Church sometimes further away. However hard things might be and however far we might stray Jesus is there walking with us. We find him in the gathered community of the faithful who make up his body, the Church. We find him in scripture, the Word of God, and most dramatically we find him in the Eucharist.

If the Last Supper saw Jesus institute the Eucharist, then this Emmaus account might show us the first recollection of it. In effect this might be first Mass celebrated after the death and resurrection of Jesus when we revisit the once and for all sacrifice offered for our salvation by Jesus.

The mass as we know it today begins with the gathering of the people. Like the disciples on the road, we are all travellers through life. In the Mass Jesus joins us all on our individual journeys no matter how far we might have strayed. In listening to the readings from sacred scripture and hearing the gospel pronounced we gain an understanding of the presence of Jesus as The Word. The Word who was with God and who was God from the beginning. Through the readings Jesus opens up scripture to us as he did for the disciples on the road. We begin to see how Jesus, as described in the New Testament, fulfilled all the expectations promised in the Old Testament. We might not fully recognise Jesus at this stage, but the eyes of our faith are gradually opened as the passages are read to us and explained in the homily.

In our prayers we ask Jesus to stay with us. We invite him to join us as we rest from our arduous journey. The truth is that it is Jesus who invites us to join him at the Eucharistic feast. In the breaking of bread, we, like the two disciples, recognise the presence of Jesus. At this point in the Gospel passage Jesus vanishes from their sight. Jesus no longer needs to be there in his physical sense because he is fully present in the consecrated bread and wine of Holy Communion. Having received Jesus in the Eucharist we are then ready to venture out again into the world, returning to the heart of the Church equipped to proclaim our faith in the risen Christ to those around us.

With the two disciples on the road we make our prayer to Jesus, ‘Stay with us’. This plea marked a turning point for the two disciples as it can for us, and it matters not how often we use it. They started from being dejected and disappointed but ended up full of enthusiastic faith. We can naturally become despondent from time to time and stray along our own road to Emmaus. Our faith will allow us to ask Jesus to stay with us on our journey. Through faith we will find him in scripture, in the people we worship with, those we come across in our everyday lives and most especially in the gift of the Eucharist. We get nowhere by wandering along our own paths but by encountering the risen Jesus we can return with joy to the communion of the faithful, re-envigored in faith ready to spread the good news of the risen Lord to others.

Stay with us Lord.

God Bless Brendan.