Reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter, 2023

How embarrassing it is when we find ourself talking to someone whom we know we should know, but we just can’t place the person. We continue the conversation hoping we won’t say something foolish that will let the other know that we don’t remember him, but eventually we either cut the encounter short or we give ourself away. It can make us feel uncomfortable for days.

Today’s Easter encounter on the way to Emmaus between the two disciples and Jesus might have been like that, but actually it wasn’t. There was something about this Stranger that seemed familiar, though they just couldn’t place Him. Still, He engendered a confidence within the disciples that allowed them to pour out their hearts to Him as they expressed their shattering grief at the death of Jesus, in whom they had placed all their trust. “But we were hoping….”

The Stranger (Jesus) began to remind them of all the prophecies about the Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures, showing them that this Jesus was, indeed, the fulfillment of each of them. Apparently they slowly began to regain hope in Him, so that when they arrived at their destination they invited Jesus to come in to tell them more. He accepted their invitation to eat with them: “Stay with us,” they begged Him, then “their eyes were opened and they knew Him in the breaking of the bread.”

They experienced the whole human experience in this encounter: shattered hearts, grieving hearts, listening hearts, welcoming hearts, seeing hearts, believing hearts and rejoicing hearts. Then Jesus vanished from their sight and they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples they had seen the Lord. “Weren’t our hearts burning within us as He spoke with us along the way?” they asked each other.

There was no embarrassment there. Jesus knew their hearts, and He met them exactly where they were. For the rest of their lives, they must have basked in the memory of that supper in Emmaus whenever they broke bread. Each time we assist at Holy Mass, we hear the words “Do this in memory of Me,” and we recognize Him in the breaking of the Bread. At Holy Communion we bring our shattered hearts, our listening hearts, our welcoming hearts, and we rejoice in His desire to ‘stay with us’ and teach us Who He is and Who we are.

In this Year of Eucharistic Revival, may we make every Holy Communion an Emmaus Supper when
we know Him in the breaking of the Bread.
Luke 24:13-25