Did Our Hearts Not Burn?
Gospel Reflection for April 3rd, 2024--- Wednesday of the Octave of Easter
“And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”1
In today’s Gospel, we hear the familiar recounting of the appearance of the Risen Lord to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Two of Our Lord’s disciples2 are leaving Jerusalem in light of the events that have just taken place. These men have just experienced Our Lord being betrayed, arrested, and executed in an immensely scandalous way. It makes sense that they would be leaving Jerusalem as a result of all of this. However, this is a very interesting event as it takes place on Easter Sunday and St. Luke tells us that when they encounter the disguised Christ, they recount that the woman of their group had reported that Jesus of Nazareth had resurrected.
The question then is begged: why are they leaving for Emmaus if the Risen Christ is among the faithful in Jerusalem? Christ gives us the answer to this in the reply to the disciple’s inquiry. He says that they are slow to believe. There is a lack of faith, no doubt as a result of the scandal of the crucifixion. I think it is very easy to identify with these disciples. How easy is it to rely only on our external senses and to struggle with believing in the supernatural elements of the faith? For these disciples, they witnessed the brutal death and the seeming finality of His burial. By all accounts, Jesus of Nazareth was dead and His movement, and their hope in Him being the promised Messiah, was dead with Him.
We then come to the glorious events of Easter Sunday. The miracle of the resurrection defies all human understanding and human effort to believe. Even the Apostles did not believe Mary Magdalene when she witnessed to what she encountered.3 Christ appearing to these disciples on the road to Emmaus disguises Himself from their sight and opens up the scriptures to them in much of the same way that Christ Himself was disguised in the prophecies of the Old Testament. He ignites within them, through His teaching and the breaking of bread,4 the faith that was lacking in them.
This is the purpose of both this scripture passage in the overall framework of the Liturgy, and even more so, the purpose of the Resurrection of the Lord. The glory of Easter is an infusion of Faith and Hope into the soul of the believer. It is meant to cause our hearts to burn for the Lord who has conquered death and has promised us a resurrection on the last day. The witness of the Resurrection is what should cause us to say with the disciples from today’s gospel:
“They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”5
May our hearts burn within us during this Easter Season.
Christ is risen!
Luke 24:25-27.
One of these men is identified as Cleopas. Tradition holds that he was most likely the brother of St. Joseph.
Cf. Luke 24:11.
Cf. Luke 24:30-31. The term “breaking of the bread” appears multiple times in the later part of the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the Apostles (also authored by St. Luke) and it is a reference to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
Luke 24:32.
Amen, Alleluia!!!!!!!!!!!!!