"On the Road Again" Are you on the Road to Emmaus?

Catholic spirituality is always a journey: pilgrimages are a stellar example. We are never a people who have arrived. We are always of the way.

You and I are a work in progress. And every year we journey through the liturgical year with its changing scenes, moods,and commemorations.

And so in today's Gospel, we make an Easter journey with two disicples. I offer this commentary and suggest you read it before you read this long gospel to in a certain sense set the scene so you may imagine yourself on the road with them:

First of all, they may be a couple, man and woman. They are like two sports fans whose team has just lost the biggest championship game. They had their whole hearts and souls invested in WINNING and now they have lost.

They just want to get out of town. Jesus, their hero has failed them. He has suffered an ignominious defeat and what is left for them in Jerusalem? Nothing.

So they walk along, downcast. Perhaps all they see is the camel dung on the dusty road. They have seven miles to walk before they can escape to Emmaus, perhaps a happier place than Jerusalem could ever be for them now.

As they walk along they play the old game: "Ain't it awful."

With their eyes cast down, they hardly notice the shadow of a stranger who catches up with them and starts to walk by their side.

He says something like: "What's up?"

"What's up?" they think: and they address the stranger:

"Are you the only person in Jerusalem  who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?"

Now imagine Jesus smlling.

"What things?" [As though he did not know!]

So they tell their sad story about the demise of Jesus.

Finaly, he sets them straight about the real story

But they still have not graspd that he isthe Risen Lord.

Only later when they sit at table, do they finally recognise him:

"in the breaking of the bread."

And so do we.

It seems today, many priests attempt to make the elevation of the host and chalice the most dramatic moments in the mass by prolonged actions.

However it would seem from the Emmaus Gospel, the most dramatic moment of every mass is really the breaking of the bread....one bread for many.

There we recognise still the Risen Christ who is with  us on our journeys.

Breakfast Question:

What is the most dramatc moment of Eucharist foryou?

Personal Reflection: Where am I on my Emmaus journey: lookng down, or looking up?"