The Emmaus Story

Today’s Gospel is the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus (Lk 24: 13-35).  The Emmaus story is everyone’s  story. Something happens in our lives.  Shaken by it, we get together with family or friends, fellow religious, sometimes even with strangers or with a counselor, a spiritual director  or the pastor of our parish to share our pain, our disillusionment, our anger and/or sadness. As with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, our eyes frequently remain shut. We do not recognize the Lord walking with us, as the Scriptures of our lives are both unfolding or being explained to us in our storytelling. As Jesus said to the two disciples, He says to us: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” We, too,  might ask ourselves:  “Did none of us realize that we had to undergo this troubling, incomprehensible, painful experience so as to enter our glory--the glory of being redeemed, the glory of being made strong in our weaknesses, the glory of faith and hope being strengthened in Christ Jesus, the glory of being broken and made whole by Divine Grace as we share in the sufferings of Christ?”  As St. Paul states in 2 Cor. 4:  8-12: “We are subjected to every kind of hardship, but never distressed; we see no way out but we never despair; we are pursued but never cut off; knocked down, but still have some life in us; always we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our body.  Indeed, while we are still alive, we are continually being handed over to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our mortal flesh. In us, then, death is at work; in you life.”