The Road to Emmaus in 2020, Third Sunday of Easter (A), April 26, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Third Sunday of Easter, Year A
April 26, 2020
Acts 2:14.22-28, Ps 16, 1 Pet 1:17-21, Lk 24:13-35

To listen to an audio recording of today’s Mass, please click below:

The following text guided today’s homily: 

• Today we encounter one of the most beautiful, touching and powerful scenes in the Gospel. It teaches us so much about Jesus. It shows us about how he interacts with his followers and seeks to interact with us. During these days of the Covid-19 era, it reveals to us how he, risen from the dead, wishes to accompany us as he comes to walk with us on the empty streets of Manhattan just as he met our predecessors on the Road to Emmaus.
• Jesus met the two disciples, Cleopas and his anonymous companion — who sometimes in Christian art is portrayed as his wife, perhaps “Mary the wife of Clopas,” since they apparently live in the same home — along the seven-mile path downhill from Jerusalem to Emmaus. That they were heading away from Jerusalem was not just an historical fact, but also a symbol of how they were heading away from the faith that Jerusalem encapsulates. Their hearts had just been put in a blender. They had believed in Jesus, deeming him to be the long-awaited Messiah. Yet their hopes were crushed when they saw him mangled and executed by the Romans. Earlier that day, women had said that his tomb was empty and that they had seen a vision of angels saying he had arisen, but they were obviously reluctant to believe again and have their hopes demolished anew. Jesus met them along the way — he met them where they were at, with all their questions and doubts — but their sadness, and some unmentioned changes in Jesus’ resurrected body, prevented their recognizing him. This seeming stranger stuck his nose into the middle of their conversation and asked, “What are you talking about?” They thought he had no idea! So they told him about Jesus, a “prophet mighty in deed and word,” who they thought might be the one to “redeem Israel,” but who was betrayed and crucified.” But then the incognito Jesus upbraided them, called them “foolish and slow of heart to believe” — slow of heart, not slow of mind, since it was mainly a problem of will and love — and, starting with Moses and all the prophets, interpreted for them all the passages of Sacred Scripture that referred to why the Messiah “had to suffer these things to enter into his glory.” Doubtless he would have mentioned Isaac’s carrying the wood for the sacrifice on his shoulders. He would have mentioned how Moses through the Passover led the people through the Red Sea and desert into the Promised Land. He would have mentioned how Isaiah had given the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, how the Book of Wisdom described that the just man would be beset by evil doers, how the Psalms had foretold so many details of the crucifixion, how Jonah prophesied his spending three days in the belly of the earth, and so much more. As he was talking, the light of truth began to penetrate the great darkness of their sadness. We learn later that their hearts began to burn as he spoke to them along the way, even though they still didn’t recognize who he was. They didn’t want this to end. Hence they invited this Wayfarer into their home: “Stay with us!,” they said. Jesus never wants to force himself on us. He wants to be invited. And they extended the invitation.
• But Jesus had something far greater in mind than merely staying with them. That’s why when he was at table, “he took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them.” Then he seemed to vanish from their midst. But he hadn’t vanished at all, because, as those four verbs indicate to us, he had celebrated with them the Eucharist, as he had with his apostles three nights earlier in the Upper Room. They could no longer see Jesus with their eyes, but Jesus remained with them under the appearances of the Eucharist. The Lord did not want merely to stay withthem, but to stay within them. Presumably, they received the Eucharist that Jesus had handed to them and entered into communion with Jesus risen from the dead. And that changed them. Not only now were their hearts burning, but their feet were set ablaze: even though it was already night and there were no streetlights in the ancient world, even though they were probably tired from the seven mile journey downhill, they burst through the door of their home and ran those seven miles up hill in pitch blackness in order to spread the word to the apostles that they had encountered the Lord Jesus. Like St. Peter said at the end of today’s first reading, they announced something similar: “God raised this Jesus, of this we are all witnesses.” They had come into contact with Jesus and they could not wait even until the morning to share that news.
• We learn so much from the scene. The first thing we can note is that Jesus entered their home. At this time in which so many disciples of Jesus are sheltering-in-place, we need to make our own the aspiration of the disciples, “Stay with us, Lord.” It’s there that he wants to help make our hearts burn as we understand that we’re not alone and that, just as his crucifixion worked out for the good of those who love him, so he wants to bring maximal good out of present evil and suffering. We need to extend the invitation. We need to eat with him, wash dishes with him, rest with him, read with him, exercise with him, and make him the center of our domestic life. We need to recognize him anew in the Breaking of the Bread, even if we have to stream it on our devices, and invite him even more intimately into the innermost rooms of our interior home. We need to let him ignite us anew with a desire to share him with others, however we can, because he is still very much alive.
• The second application of this scene I’d like to make is to the Mass. During this time in which attending at Mass is so much more difficult and complicated, it’s good for us to grow in our understanding, appreciation and ravenous hunger. St. John Paul II made this application in his 2004 exhortation Mane Nobiscum Domine, which was written to stoke our amazement at the reality of the Risen Lord Jesus in the holy Eucharist. Basing himself on the insights of so many saints before him, St. John Paul II said that the Mass charts the itinerary on which Jesus renews what he did during the Emmaus walk. St. Peter wrote in today’s second reading, “Conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning,” and Jesus comes each Mass to show us reverence, making us his tabernacles, and helping us reverence him and others all the days of our sojourn.
• We begin Mass with the “liturgy of the word,” in which Jesus wants to open us up to the truths of Sacred Scripture and make our hearts burn again. He wants us to see how all the Scriptures are fulfilled in him. He wants the light that comes from his truth to penetrate whatever darkness we experience, so that we might see him with us along the way, and be strengthened by his love in every experience. Saint John Paul II wrote in his beautiful letter, “It is Christ himself who speaks when the Holy Scriptures are read in the Church.” But we have to ask ourselves, with candor, whether we come with the hope that Christ will set our hearts on fire when he speaks to us in Sacred Scripture. Are we at the edge of our seats, conscious that it is God who is speaking to us and giving us a response to the deepest questions we have, that he is providing the answer to who we are, who we called to be, and what we’re called to do? Sometimes I think we can approach Sacred Scripture with ears covered with asbestos earmuffs and hearts surrounded by fire-extinguishing foam. We don’t treat his words as the “words of eternal life.” We don’t allow them to penetrate. We don’t hunger for every word that comes from his mouth. Our hearts are slow. Our soil is hardened, rocky or thorny. Jesus wants to change it.
• Moreover, the more our hearts burn out of love for God who reveals himself to us, the easier it is to recognize Jesus in the Eucharist, just as the disciples in Emmaus saw him across the table in the breaking of the Bread. The reason for this is simple. The more attentively we hang on what Jesus is telling us in the Gospel and through the other readings that point to him, the easier it is to hear his voice and trust in him as he says to us in the Mass, “This is my body, given for you,” “this is the chalice of my blood… poured out for you and for all, for the forgiveness of sins.” The more we read about Jesus’ miracles the easier it is for us to accept the mind-blowing reality of the continuous miracle of the Eucharist.
• And the more we truly become aware that Jesus is speaking to us at Mass as he interprets for us the Scriptures and stays not just with us but within us in the Eucharist, then we will be bursting with the desire to share him with others. The index, the litmus test, the criterion for us to determine if we really get it is whether and with how much zeal we share that reality with others. We see in the disciples of Emmaus that they couldn’t wait to share with others their encounter with Jesus, what he had revealed to them about Sacred Scripture, what he done for them in their home. Are we filled with a similar holy woe to proclaim the Gospel? I love those passages in Pope Francis’ Joy of the Gospel in which Pope Francis describes the transformation that happens when we really encounter the Lord. “What kind of love,” he asks, “would not feel the need to speak of the beloved, to point him out, to make him known?” (264). He said that “we are convinced from personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to. …We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything.  This is why we evangelize” (266). That’s what Jesus hopes to have us realize, first intellectually and then performatively.
• The third application I want to make regards how Jesus wants to teach us to accompany others, particularly those who have drifted from the practice of the faith, who, like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, are abandoning Jerusalem and all it symbolizes with regard to God and faith and heading downhill into the darkness away from God’s light. Pope Francis considered this aspect in what I believe is one of the most powerful homilies of his pontificate, one that deserves to be read not only today but 500 or 1000 years from now. In Brazil in 2013, in a homily to the bishops present at World Youth Day, he summoned them and the whole Church to learn from Jesus how to accompany people today, to be “unafraid of going forth into their night, … of meeting them on their way, … of entering into their conversation”; to learn effectively how “to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning.” He comments profoundly — with regard to the disciples in Emmaus as well as the fallen away disciples of our own age —  that “the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return,” if we know “how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture.” That bears repeating: the reasons why people leave contain reasons why they can eventually return. We see this in the disciples of Emmaus. They were leaving because they thought Jesus couldn’t possibly have been the Messiah if he were crucified by the very occupying force that they believed the Messiah would defeat and evict; when Jesus, however helped them to see that the Messiah had to suffer so as to enter into his glory, everything changed. The crucifixion wasn’t a contradiction of Messianic prophecies, but a confirmation of them! The reason why they were leaving became the reason for their return. Likewise, if people have left the Church because they believe that Mass is boring, the way to get them back is to help them to understand what really happens at Mass and to do all we can, through our own enthusiastic participation, to contribute to making Mass a truly joyful, solemn, reverent encounter with God. If someone is leaving due to hypocritical, un-Christian conduct on behalf of Catholic faithful and clergy they know, they’re confessing that they know that the Church is supposed to be holy; if we can help show them that holiness, we can be God’s instrument to draw them back. If people are leaving because of the death of a loved one, especially the premature death of a child of young parents or the sudden death of parents or grandparents of young children, many can with sadness abandon God for not doing what it took to prevent the death. But within this angry response is contained the seed of deep faith that God who is love should want the best for our loved ones, he should want them to live and not just live another year. When we’re able to help others to recognize that that is in fact God’s desire and plan through the death and resurrection of Jesus for them to live forever, their anger can be converted into the reason for much greater passion in the faith. But none of this happens automatically. And it doesn’t happen fundamentally by sending the smartest people with the best theological arguments out to knock on doors on Sunday mornings, or visit the soccer fields, or set up shop outside the malls and supermarkets. That’s because it’s not fundamentally an intellectual exercise that draws people back. It’s the example of faith in the one entering into the discussion.
• Pope Francis provocatively asked in Brazil if we have that type of faith, in which one’s heart, mind, soul and strength is full of burning love for God and others. “Jesus warmed the hearts of the disciples of Emmaus,” he challenged the bishops and all of us. “I would like all of us to ask ourselves today: Are we still a Church capable of warming hearts? A Church capable of leading people back to Jerusalem? Of bringing them home?” He’s asking whether our hearts are on fire with love for God, with love for the truths of faith, with love for them such that we can warm and melt their hearts to make them receive the truth. Are we capable of showing others that we lovethe beauty of our faith, even if we can’t understand every aspect of it or articulate it adequately? This is especially important when it comes to sufferings. Can we express that, far from punishments, the crosses that God asks us to bear are actually blessings? Pope Francis says, “Nothing is more lofty than the abasement of the Cross, since there we truly approach the height of love! Are we still capable of demonstrating this truth to those who think that the apex of life is to be found elsewhere? Do we know anything more powerful than the strength hidden within the weakness of love, goodness, truth and beauty?” These questions are all the more relevant during the time of the coronavirus when the sufferings of so many are magnified and people less distracted by the busy-ness of life to have conversations about the direction of their life, whether believe, as we prayed in the Psalm, that the Lord will show them the path of life and whether they’re willing to follow.
• Today Jesus has come here to join us on our journey. He has spoken his words to us trying to send the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire to make our hearts burn. He will soon reveal himself to us in the Breaking of the Bread. And he will send us forth at the end with his blessing to that we might say to others, discreetly lest we blow our cover and fill others with a holy jealousy for the privilege we have today, “We have seen the Lord!” We have heard him! We have been touched by him! We have entered into communion with him! The Lord Jesus has heard Cleophas’ prayer, “Stay with us,” and he has come to make it possible for us and others to stay with him, here in this exile and as we make the journey running uphill to the celestial Jerusalem where he has invited us and awaits us at the table in his Father’s house.

The readings for today’s Mass were: