Their Eyes Were Opened

Gospel Reflection for Wednesday of the Octave of Easter, April 23, 2025

The Breaking of the Bread

Today’s Gospel is the familiar journey to Emmaus. We hear that the Risen Lord appears to two of His disciples and converses with them as they journey to Emmaus from Jerusalem. There are two details that I want to meditate on today. The first is the act that Christ does with the disciples. St. Luke tells us:

“And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus Himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.” Luke 24:15-16

The second is the effect that this conversation and then the breaking of the bread had on these disciples:

“With that, their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him, but He vanished from their sight.” Luke 24:31.

These two actions occur elsewhere in Scripture, specifically in Genesis. The third chapter of Genesis tells us that God came down and was “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”¹ It is implied that this was a normal occurrence as Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the Lord God walking” and as a result “hid themselves.”² Before sin, God would come down and walk with Adam and Eve, and converse with them as friends. Later on in Genesis, this intimate relationship is again cited with a descendant of Adam named Enoch, who is said to have “walked with God.”³ This phrase is used in scripture to show a unique relationship that a creature has with his creator.

Here, on the road to Emmaus, these two disciples are once again able to walk with God. Through sin, this privilege to walk with God is shattered, but through the cross and resurrection, this relationship is repaired. Thus, man is now able to walk with God as Adam and Eve did and as Enoch was allowed to do. Except now, it is the Incarnate and Risen Lord with whom the disciples come into contact.

The result of this walking with God and eventual breaking of the bread is that “their eyes were opened.” This is a recapitulation of what happens in Genesis as a result of sin. Genesis reads:

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.”⁴

The Genesis text specifically says that on account of sin, the eyes were opened. This opening of the eyes is an opening toward sin and the shame that accompanies such a radical turning away from God, the source of our dignity. This is why Adam and Eve realize that they are naked. Shame enters into the human condition, and our sight is now clouded by objectification and concupiscence.

On the road to Emmaus, Our Lord recapitulates this opening of the eyes. Here, through the Breaking of the Bread, that is, the celebration of the Eucharist, the disciples’ eyes are now opened to grace. They are opened to the glory of salvation history as Our Lord opens the scriptures to them.

No longer is man meant to be held down by the chains of sin and shame. Christ has died for the sake of mankind to redeem us from our sins, and He has conquered death through the glorious resurrection, restoring to man that original dignity that was stolen through original sin.

Our eyes are indeed opened to the glory of God in the risen Lord.

1. Genesis 3:8.

2. Ibid.

3. Genesis 5:24.

4. Genesis 3:6-7.