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Jesus appeared outwardly as He was in their hearts. They were to be internally tested whether, not yet loving Him as God, they could at least love Him as a stranger. However, since love could not be foreign to those with whom the Truth walked, they invite Jesus as a wanderer. But why do we say “invite” when it says, “And they forced Him.” This example shows that strangers should not only be invited into hospitality, but forced to make use of it. They prepare the tableware, serve the bread and food, and they will know the God whom they did not know when he interpreted the Holy Scriptures when they break the bread.
St. Gregory the Great
They stopped sad…
We know where the sorrow of the students on the way to Emmaus came from. They had lost the Master on whom they had a footing and who would secure the political liberation of their nation. The vision of the world that had been so far disintegrated. Hopes were shattered. The only thing left is the fear of what will happen next.
Where does our sadness come from? Why do many Christians lack joy in daily life? Why do we worry, insult, and treat with deadly seriousness matters that, in general, do not deserve it? Why do we eagerly close ourselves in greater or lesser strongholds of our fears and, instead of sharing our Christian hope, we become outstanding writers of dark scenarios?
Christian civilization is on the decline and soon we will face a cultural, and maybe even completely physical, destruction … The deterioration of morals causes that fear will move from home, from a fenced and monitored housing estate … Even within one nation it can be seen as a huge moral gap that makes it difficult to communicate with a neighbor or a colleague from work … Everything changes so quickly that even an intelligent and well-educated person must face helplessness in the face of technical novelties … This is just an example fragment of the list of phenomena that we are afraid of.
Let’s take a look at our fears. Let’s make a personal catalog of them. Let us try to tell about them to someone close to us, the person we trust, and preferably also to Jesus during our prayer. It is about temporary relief, but also about looking at things from a different, not only egocentric, perspective.
And we expected…
Yes, we expected it to be different, easier, more fun. Or maybe we did not even expect, but we did not take into account that we may also be affected by misfortune, disease, suffering, that an intricately arranged plan will fail, that we will have to adapt to historical changes like many previous generations, while at the same time trying to maintain our identity . We ignored cautions and warnings. Now we ask: Why is this happening to me? Everyone can, but not me and my relatives. NO!
Preoccupied with ourselves, cocoons of our own pretensions to God and the world that do not meet our expectations, our eyes seem to be obscured and our hearts are slow to believe. We do not want to see the faces, let alone the problems of those around us. We cannot see Jesus coming out to meet us every day.
St. Gregory the Great writes beautifully about the fact that the meeting on the road to Emmaus was a test for the apostles whether, not yet loving Jesus as God, they could at least love Him as a stranger. So let us ask ourselves how each of us relates to the strangers we meet on our various paths: to people who think differently, behave and look weird, have different habits or faith, often even more frightened, hostile towards us, aggressive. What are we going to do with this meeting? Will we use them to deepen and strengthen our relationship with God?
Today’s readings remind us that the risen Jesus is the source of our hope, joy and peace. It is He who can heal our fears and get us out of our selfishness that limits our horizons. Let us listen to His words like the apostles on the way to Emmaus. Let us listen to them always when we face problems that we believe are insoluble and when it seems to us that our world is or is about to crumble.
Let’s try, like Jesus, to go to the people we meet on the way with the Good News, and not with our own painful stories, wounds, fears, pessimism!
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