Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 24,13-35. That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus' disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, "What are you discussing as you walk along?" They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?" And he replied to them, "What sort of things?" They said to him, "The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see." And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning (within us) while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?" So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, "The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!" Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Very often we have heard that Christianity is not merely a doctrine, nor a way of behaving, nor a culture. Yes, it is all this, but it is first and foremost an encounter. A person is Christian because he or she has encountered Jesus Christ, has let him or herself be encountered by Him.
This passage of the Gospel of Luke tells us about an encounter, so as to enable us to know better how the Lord acts and how we act. We are born with a seed of restlessness. God wants it thus: the restlessness of finding fullness, restlessness of finding God, very often always without knowing that we have this restlessness. Our hearts are restless, our hearts are thirsty: thirsty for the encounter with God. Our hearts seek Him, many times on the wrong paths: it gets lost, then it returns, it seeks Him… On the other hand, God thirsts for the encounter to the point that He sent Jesus to meet us, to come towards this restlessness.
How does Jesus act? In this passage of the Gospel (see Lk 24, 13-35), we see clearly that He respects our situation, He does not go ahead. Only at times, with the headstrong - think of Paul, when he is thrown down from the horse. But usually He goes slowly, respecting our pace. He is the Lord of patience. How much patience the Lord has with us, with each one of us!
The Lord walks next to us, as we have seen here with these two disciples. He listens to our restlessness, He knows it, and at a certain point He says something to us. The Lord likes to hear how we speak, to understand us well and to give the right answer to that disquiet. The Lord does not speed up His pace, He always keeps in step with us, very often slow, but His patience is thus.
There is an ancient rule of pilgrims, which says that the true pilgrim should go at the pace of the slowest person. And Jesus is capable of this, He does it, He does not speed up, He waits for us to take the first step. And when it is the right moment, He asks the question. In this case it is clear: “What are you discussing?” (see v. 17). He makes Himself appear ignorant to make us speak to Him. He likes it when we speak to Him. He likes to hear this, He likes us to speak to Him in this way, to listen to Him and to answer, He makes us talk. As if He were ignorant, but with great respect. And then He answers, He explains, up to the necessary point. Here He says to us: “‘Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into His glory?’” Then “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them what referred to Him in all the scriptures” (v. 26). He explains, He clarifies. I confess that I am curious to know how Jesus explained, to do the same. It was a beautiful catechesis.
And then the same Jesus who has accompanied us, who has drawn close to us, pretends to go on further, to see the extent of our restlessness. “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over” (v. 29). And in this way we meet. But the encounter is not just a time to break bread here, but the entire journey. We meet Jesus in the darkness of our doubts, even in the ugly doubt of our sins, He is there to help us, in our anxieties... He is always with us.
The Lord accompanies us because He wants to meet us. That is why we say that the core of Christianity is an encounter: it is the encounter with Jesus. “Why are you a Christian? Why are you a Christian?” And a lot of people are unable to say. Some, by tradition. Others cannot say it, because they met Jesus, but they didn't realise it was an encounter with Jesus. Jesus is always looking for us. Always. And we have our restlessness. In the moment in which our restlessness meets Jesus, that is where the life of grace begin, life in its fullness, the life of the Christian journey.
May the Lord give us all this grace to meet Jesus every day; to know, to be aware that it is really He who is walking with us in all our moments. He is our pilgrim companion.
FAUSTI - Of this episode, taken from a secondary tradition, Luke makes an exemplary page to show us how the Risen Lord is still present in our lives of believers and how we can meet Him. The two pilgrims are figure of the Church. It changes heart, face, and path when, in the double table of the Word and of the Bread,it "experiences" the Living One and joins itself to Peter's proclamation of faith, by whom He "was seen". In this story,in which they proceed from "not recognizing" to "recognizing" the Lord Jesus, Luke the synthesis of the whole path proposed to his reader. From the beginning he had fixed to himself to make "recognize" to Theophilus the truth of the Word in which he was instructed . And he makes this in two successive steps, which correspond to the two parts of the Gospel: the listening of the Lord announcing the Word and the vision of His face that culminates on the cross. The center of the two catechesis is the mystery of the Son of the man , dead and risen , before whom every man "is foolish and slow to heart in believing ". The sense of the whole Gospel, which Luke proposes to the believer, is to make "know" Jesus well to him, so that he can "recognize" Him without exchanging Him for another one! The two disciples know the Scripture. They reject however the scandal of the Cross, ignoring that it is the key to enter in it and understand it .The dead and risen Lord - whose the Gospel tells us and we memorized in the Eucharist - brings us to receive the story of Jesus as the realization and explanation of the whole plan of salvation. We can too, like the women and like Peter, go on pilgrimage to the tomb. Like them, we find it empty. The Living One is not there. But he did not leave us. He is in the ways of the world, until His Kingdom is accomplished. He, the only Son, who always resides among the Father, came out in search of the other ninety-nine lost brethren. He follows them, encounters and accompanies them, to transform their exile from flight into pilgrimage. The nostalgia - which remains and expresses itself in desire. "Maranà thà" – from sad sorrow for a earl ever more unlikely return , it becomes a joyous run toward Father's house. Like to the two of Emmaus, He becomes close to everyone of us . He makes our own steps both of disappointment and of hope, both of death and of life. He meets us in our daily traveling business, joining Himself to our journey, wherever we go. He does not turn away from us, even if we are moving away from Him. The Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost. Our heart is dead and frozen. Our eyes, impregnated by fear, are incapable of recognizing Him. They have been closed since when, at the foot of the tree, the lie opened them to our nudity. But now He who was crucified on the tree, He warms our hearts and clears our sight. He in person explains the Scriptures to us and opens our eyes. Even if He becomes invisible, we know that He came in to stay with us. With His strength we make the Holy Journey which puts us in communion of faith and of life with the first disciples. We too "recognize" the Living One. He was also "seen" by them. But only for a short time, to establish their and our faith. This is the only difference between them and us. After all, it is the same the path that leads to recognize Him and the resulting force is identical . Both those by whom He was seen , and everyone of us to whom He was witnessed, we come to Him through the announcement that reveals Him as the Risen One, the memory of His Word and His "gesture” of breaking the Bread. The Word and the Bread, with which He remains in our spirit and in our flesh, are Church's viatic until the end of time. Man becomes the Word that hears, and he lives of the Bread that he eats. The Word and the Body of the Son assimilate us to Him, giving us His own Spirit, which is the strength to live as the children of the Father and as brothers among us. During His life Jesus only cared for someone and only temporarily: healed sick persons, even the resurrected deads, will die again.
To think of Him, to speak of Him, as with those two disciples (one is Cleopas, the other may bear our name) is always nevertheless a walking with Him, even without our knowledge. "The Lord is near to those who call upon Him and seek Him with a sincere heart," Psalm 145 reminds us. And He Himself sustains us, enlightens us with His Word that makes the heart burn in the Spirit , with His Presence that establishes a friendship in the Truth of the dialogue that illuminates the meaning of events, in a perspective of fulfillment of expectations, of flourishing of Hope, of the experience of a Love that becomes a gift of Himself. The time of this meeting in the morning after the Sabbath marks the beginning of the celebration of the Church, of the Communities that, listening to Jesus, in the small Emmaus scattered throughout the world, always receive, without interruption, the Gift of the Word and the Bread broken , in the Eucharist, the thanksgiving in which one lives with and of Him Who said : " I will be with you until the end of the world." Gift of Life , offered at the Last Supper, realized on the Cross, source of Strength and Song of Eternity that gives Glory to the Father, in His Infinite Love , through the Son Born, Dead and Risen for us!
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
RispondiEliminaaccording to Saint Luke 24,13-35.
That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus' disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them, "What are you discussing as you walk along?" They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?"
And he replied to them, "What sort of things?" They said to him, "The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see."
And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?"
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning (within us) while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?"
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them
who were saying, "The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!"
Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
RispondiElimina“Jesus is our pilgrim companion” 26 April 2020
Very often we have heard that Christianity is not merely a doctrine, nor a way of behaving, nor a culture. Yes, it is all this, but it is first and foremost an encounter. A person is Christian because he or she has encountered Jesus Christ, has let him or herself be encountered by Him.
This passage of the Gospel of Luke tells us about an encounter, so as to enable us to know better how the Lord acts and how we act. We are born with a seed of restlessness. God wants it thus: the restlessness of finding fullness, restlessness of finding God, very often always without knowing that we have this restlessness. Our hearts are restless, our hearts are thirsty: thirsty for the encounter with God. Our hearts seek Him, many times on the wrong paths: it gets lost, then it returns, it seeks Him… On the other hand, God thirsts for the encounter to the point that He sent Jesus to meet us, to come towards this restlessness.
How does Jesus act? In this passage of the Gospel (see Lk 24, 13-35), we see clearly that He respects our situation, He does not go ahead. Only at times, with the headstrong - think of Paul, when he is thrown down from the horse. But usually He goes slowly, respecting our pace. He is the Lord of patience. How much patience the Lord has with us, with each one of us!
The Lord walks next to us, as we have seen here with these two disciples. He listens to our restlessness, He knows it, and at a certain point He says something to us. The Lord likes to hear how we speak, to understand us well and to give the right answer to that disquiet. The Lord does not speed up His pace, He always keeps in step with us, very often slow, but His patience is thus.
There is an ancient rule of pilgrims, which says that the true pilgrim should go at the pace of the slowest person. And Jesus is capable of this, He does it, He does not speed up, He waits for us to take the first step. And when it is the right moment, He asks the question. In this case it is clear: “What are you discussing?” (see v. 17). He makes Himself appear ignorant to make us speak to Him. He likes it when we speak to Him. He likes to hear this, He likes us to speak to Him in this way, to listen to Him and to answer, He makes us talk. As if He were ignorant, but with great respect. And then He answers, He explains, up to the necessary point. Here He says to us: “‘Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into His glory?’” Then “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them what referred to Him in all the scriptures” (v. 26). He explains, He clarifies. I confess that I am curious to know how Jesus explained, to do the same. It was a beautiful catechesis.
And then the same Jesus who has accompanied us, who has drawn close to us, pretends to go on further, to see the extent of our restlessness. “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over” (v. 29). And in this way we meet. But the encounter is not just a time to break bread here, but the entire journey. We meet Jesus in the darkness of our doubts, even in the ugly doubt of our sins, He is there to help us, in our anxieties... He is always with us.
The Lord accompanies us because He wants to meet us. That is why we say that the core of Christianity is an encounter: it is the encounter with Jesus. “Why are you a Christian? Why are you a Christian?” And a lot of people are unable to say. Some, by tradition. Others cannot say it, because they met Jesus, but they didn't realise it was an encounter with Jesus. Jesus is always looking for us. Always. And we have our restlessness. In the moment in which our restlessness meets Jesus, that is where the life of grace begin, life in its fullness, the life of the Christian journey.
May the Lord give us all this grace to meet Jesus every day; to know, to be aware that it is really He who is walking with us in all our moments. He is our pilgrim companion.
FAUSTI - Of this episode, taken from a secondary tradition, Luke makes an exemplary page to show us how the Risen Lord is still present in our lives of believers and how we can meet Him.
RispondiEliminaThe two pilgrims are figure of the Church. It changes heart, face, and path
when, in the double table of the Word and of the Bread,it "experiences" the Living One and joins itself to Peter's proclamation of faith, by whom He "was seen".
In this story,in which they proceed from "not recognizing" to "recognizing" the Lord Jesus, Luke the synthesis of the whole path proposed to his reader.
From the beginning he had fixed to himself to make "recognize" to Theophilus the truth of the Word in which he was instructed . And he makes this in two successive steps, which correspond to the two parts of the Gospel: the listening of the Lord announcing the Word and the vision of His face that culminates on the cross.
The center of the two catechesis is the mystery of the Son of the man , dead and risen , before whom every man "is foolish and slow to heart in believing ".
The sense of the whole Gospel, which Luke proposes to the believer, is to make "know" Jesus well to him, so that he can "recognize" Him without exchanging Him for another one! The two disciples know the Scripture. They reject however the scandal of the Cross, ignoring that it is the key to enter in it and understand it .The dead and risen Lord - whose the Gospel tells us and we memorized in the Eucharist - brings us to receive the story of Jesus as the realization and explanation of the whole plan of salvation.
We can too, like the women and like Peter, go on pilgrimage to the tomb. Like them, we find it empty. The Living One is not there. But he did not leave us.
He is in the ways of the world, until His Kingdom is accomplished.
He, the only Son, who always resides among the Father, came out in search of the other ninety-nine lost brethren. He follows them, encounters and accompanies them, to transform their exile from flight into pilgrimage. The nostalgia - which remains and expresses itself in desire. "Maranà thà" – from sad sorrow for a earl ever more unlikely return , it becomes a joyous run toward Father's house.
Like to the two of Emmaus, He becomes close to everyone of us . He makes our own steps both of disappointment and of hope, both of death and of life. He meets us in our daily traveling business, joining Himself to our journey, wherever we go. He does not turn away from us, even if we are moving away from Him. The Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.
Our heart is dead and frozen. Our eyes, impregnated by fear, are incapable of recognizing Him. They have been closed since when, at the foot of the tree, the lie opened them to our nudity.
But now He who was crucified on the tree, He warms our hearts and clears our sight.
He in person explains the Scriptures to us and opens our eyes. Even if He becomes invisible, we know that He came in to stay with us. With His strength we make the Holy Journey which puts us in communion of faith and of life with the first disciples. We too "recognize" the Living One.
He was also "seen" by them. But only for a short time, to establish their and our faith.
This is the only difference between them and us. After all, it is the same the path that leads to recognize Him and the resulting force is identical . Both those by whom He was seen , and everyone of us to whom He was witnessed, we come to Him through the announcement that reveals Him as the Risen One, the memory of His Word and His "gesture” of breaking the Bread. The Word and the Bread, with which He remains in our spirit and in our flesh, are Church's viatic until the end of time.
Man becomes the Word that hears, and he lives of the Bread that he eats.
The Word and the Body of the Son assimilate us to Him, giving us His own Spirit, which is the strength to live as the children of the Father and as brothers among us.
During His life Jesus only cared for someone and only temporarily: healed sick persons, even the resurrected deads, will die again.
To think of Him, to speak of Him, as with those two disciples (one is Cleopas, the other may bear our name) is always nevertheless a walking with Him, even without our knowledge. "The Lord is near to those who call upon Him and seek Him with a sincere heart," Psalm 145 reminds us.
RispondiEliminaAnd He Himself sustains us, enlightens us with His Word that makes the heart burn in the Spirit , with His Presence that establishes a friendship in the Truth of the dialogue that illuminates the meaning of events, in a perspective of fulfillment of expectations, of flourishing of Hope, of the experience of a Love that becomes a gift of Himself.
The time of this meeting in the morning after the Sabbath marks the beginning of the celebration of the Church, of the Communities that, listening to Jesus, in the small Emmaus scattered throughout the world, always receive, without interruption, the Gift of the Word and the Bread broken , in the Eucharist, the thanksgiving in which one lives with and of Him Who said : " I will be with you until the end of the world."
Gift of Life , offered at the Last Supper, realized on the Cross, source of Strength and Song of Eternity that gives Glory to the Father, in His Infinite Love , through the Son Born, Dead and Risen for us!