The Way the Risen Jesus Accompanies Us, Third Sunday of Easter (A), April 23, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Third Sunday of Easter, Year A
April 23, 2023
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 homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• Today, after we have accompanied the Lord Jesus on a Eucharistic Pilgrimage to and through the Columbia campus, we have one of the most beautiful, touching and powerful scenes in the Gospel, which teaches us about how the Risen Lord Jesus regularly seeks to journey with us though life, as he comes to walk with us on College Way and throughout Morningside as he ambled alongside our predecessors on the Road to Emmaus. As we head toward the end of the semester, toward finals, and, for those will soon be graduating, toward the post-Columbia pilgrimage of life, this scene teaches us invaluable lessons about how he wants to help us to walk in the light of Christ’s Resurrection — and in his light see light (Ps 36:10; Columbia’s motto).
• Jesus met the two disciples, Cleopas and his anonymous companion — who sometimes in Christian art is portrayed as his wife, perhaps the “Mary the wife of Clopas” who was at the foot of the Cross, 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 Jesus 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! They treated him as if he were someone who cluelessly asked on September 12, 2001, “What’s up?,” oblivious to everything that had occurred the previous day. “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?,” Cleopas asked. Jesus, to draw their reactions to the first Triduum out of them, queried, “What sort of things?” So they told him about Jesus himself, whom they called a “prophet mighty in deed and word,” who they had hoped would 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 Abel’s being slain by Cain, Isaac’s carrying the wood for the sacrifice on his shoulders, Moses’ leading the Israelites in the Passover through the Red Sea and desert to the Promised Land, Isaiah’s prophecies of the Suffering Servant, the Book of Wisdom’s detailing that the just man would be beset by evildoers, the Psalms’ (especially Ps 22 and 69) foretelling so many details of the crucifixion, Jonah’s spending three days in the belly of the whale, 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 begged, and Jesus accepted their invitation.
• But Jesus had something far greater in mind than merely staying with That’s why, when he was at table in their home, “He took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them.” These four verbs are the ones that the evangelists used to describe the multiplication of the loaves and fish as well as the celebration of the Eucharist. They were a sign that he entered their home to make it an Upper Room and do what he had done three nights before during the Last Supper. As soon as he had given them the “Bread” he had taken, blessed and broken, the “Bread” that he turned into himself, he seemed to vanish from their midst, but he hadn’t vanished at all, because he remained with them under the sacramental appearances. They could no longer see with their eyes the Guest who had journeyed with them, but they could see him now with the eyes of faith under different appearances. He remained with them in the Eucharist. 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. They announced something similar to what St. Peter said at the end of today’s first reading: “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. He brought salvation to their house, just like he had previously brought it to Matthew, to Zacchaeus, to Jairus and his daughter, to Martha, Mary and Lazarus, and to the woman in Simon the Pharisee’s house. He similarly wants us to invite him into our dorm rooms or apartments, not just to pay a visit, but to stay with us perseveringly, just as he did with Mary and Joseph. “Stay with us, Lord!” is one of the most well-used aspirations of Christians across the centuries. It’s a plea to live one’s life with the Lord. Jesus wants to enter our home, our life, not as a temporary guest, but as a roommate for life, so that he can show us the path of life and make every path we walk ultimately a Road to Emmaus. Today is a day to make, or renew, that life-changing invitation!
• The second application of this scene I’d like to make is to the Mass. St. John Paul II made this application in his 2004 exhortation Mane Nobiscum Domine, Latin for “Stay with us, Lord,” 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 many saints before him, John Paul 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, to make us his tabernacles, and to help 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 are experiencing, 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 exhortation, “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 conscious that it is God who is speaking to us, trying to respond to some of the deepest questions we and other human beings have, seeking to provide answers to who we are, who we called to be, and what we’re called to do? Sometimes some Catholics can approach the Liturgy of the Word 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, every Liturgy of the Word, but sometimes we need a traumatic event, like his crucifixion, to give his word the hearing it always deserves.
• 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 finally saw him with faith 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 many.” 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 the Risen 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 these uber-important spiritual realities 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 had done for them in their home. Are we filled with a similar holy woe to proclaim the Gospel (1 Cor 9:16)? I love those passages in Pope Francis’ Joy of the Gospel in which the Holy Father 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 in action.
• The last 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 and heading downhill into the darkness away from God’s light. So many people today are heading away from God, not toward him. Five of six Catholics in the U.S. head away from God on the Lord’s Day, rather than come to welcome him into their lives the way that the disciples in Emmaus eventually did. This is particularly the way with Gen Z Catholics, who are increasingly self-identifying as “nones,” those who define themselves as not believing or practicing any religion. Pope Francis considered this trend of people wandering from Jerusalem in what I believe is one of the most powerful homilies of his pontificate, ten years ago in Brazil in 2013, toward the end of World Youth Day, in a Mass with all of the bishops present. 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.” With regard to the disciples in Emmaus as well as the fallen away disciples of our own age, he said, profoundly, 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, he asserted and they finally saw, 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 this interior metanoia, this conversion of perspective, 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. “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 love the 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?”
• Today Jesus, after journeying with us through campus, has come here to 114^th and Morningside, wanting and waiting to invite him to “stay with us,” now and until the end of time. He has spoken his words to us trying to send the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire to make our hearts burn with gratitude for Sacred Scripture. He will soon reveal himself to us in the Breaking of the Bread. And then he will send us forth with his blessing so that we might say to others, “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 our reiteration of Cleopas’ prayer, “Stay with us,” and has come to make it possible for us and others to remain with him, as he shows us the path of life, as he helps us in his risen light to see light, as he commits himself anew to accompany us on our journey through life uphill to the celestial Jerusalem where he himself has invited us and awaits us at the table in the house of the Father. Stay with us, Lord! Help us stay with you! And help us draw others to the joy of remaining with you, too! Amen!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

He was known before the foundation of the world
but revealed in the final time for you,
who through him believe in God
who raised him from the dead and gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are in God.

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