“They stopped, looking downcast”

Why did these two disciples look downcast? The two disciples looked downcast because all of their hopes were shattered with the death of Christ. He was the man they had hoped in, invested in and trusted in, and now He was gone. They wanted to get as far away from Jerusalem as possible, so they began walking to Emmaus. Emmaus was seven miles away from Jerusalem. It would have taken about three hours to walk that distance.
 
Why were these disciples going to Emmaus? It is not important where they are going but where they are departing from. They are leaving Jerusalem, leaving the pain of the passion and death of Jesus. Perhaps these two are in despair and just want to get out of town, maybe they left out of fear, or to get away from the memory of Jesus’s death. For whatever their reason, these disciples walked away and walked looking downcast. When and why have we walked away from Jesus? How has Jesus met us on our walk away from Him?
 
What causes us to get demoralized, lose hope and have our faith shaken? Many things happen to us that cause our faith to be shaken; in today’s Gospel we see that “the disciples’ faith was drastically put to the test by their master’s Passion and death on the cross, which he had foretold. The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that at least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized (‘looking sad’) and frightened.” [1]
 
At this point, the disciples have lost the meaning in their lives because they do not understand the Cross. They have forgotten that Jesus said at the Transfiguration that he would “have to go by the way of the cross at Jerusalem in order to ‘enter into his glory.’” [2] Christ gives them hope and courage by teaching them the meaning of the Cross. He starts with the question, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” After asking the question, Jesus then teaches the disciples from what Saint Bonaventure calls the greatest book – the Cross. Pope John Paul II, in his book Memory and Identity, wrote, “The suffering of the Crucified God is not just one form of suffering alongside others...In sacrificing himself for us all, Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love…The passion of Christ on the Cross gave a radically new meaning to suffering, transforming it from within…It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil with the flame of love…All human suffering, all pain, all infirmity contains within itself a promise of salvation…evil is present in the world partly so as to awaken our love, our self-gift in generous and disinterested service to those visited by suffering.…Christ has redeemed the world:  ‘By His wounds we are healed’ (Is 53: 5).’”
 
Pope Benedict XVI, commenting on this passage to the Roman Curia in 2005, said, “All this is not merely learned theology, but the expression of a faith lived and matured through suffering. We must do all we can to alleviate suffering and prevent the injustice that causes the suffering of the innocent. However, we must also do the utmost to ensure that people can discover the meaning of suffering, and are thus able to accept their own suffering and to unite it with the suffering of Christ. Listen to Our Lord’s appeal: ‘In me, I want you to see your own body, your members, your heart, your bones, your blood. You may fear what is divine, but why not love what is human? You may run away from me as the Lord, but why not run to me as your father? Perhaps you are filled with shame for causing my bitter passion. Do not be afraid. This cross inflicts a mortal injury, not on me, but on death. These nails no longer pain me, but only deepen your love for me. I do not cry out because of these wounds, but through them I draw you into my heart. My body was stretched on the cross as a symbol, not of how much I suffered, but of my all-embracing love. I count it no less to shed my blood: it is the price I have paid for your ransom. Come, then, return to me and learn to know me as your father, who repays good for evil, love for injury, and boundless charity for piercing wounds.’” [3]
 
What obstacles prevent people from finding meaning in the Cross, meaning in suffering?Without the example of Christ, it is difficult to see the meaning in the Cross. For Christ has done what we all hope to do and what we cannot do without Him – he suffered in order to enter into glory. In the light of understanding, the Cross becomes our key to heaven, our greatest weapon against the enemy. “The cross, which he [Satan] had so exultingly prepared for the Just One, has been his overthrow; or, as St. Anthony so forcibly expresses it, it is the bait thrown out to the leviathan, which he took, and taking it, was conquered.” [4]
 
The two disciples are like the Jews, the people of God who had forgotten the law and became unfaithful to the covenant and ended up in exile. The disciples exile themselves from the memory of Christ and from the Church, the apostles who stayed in Jerusalem. “The People of God had to suffer this purification. In God’s plan, the Exile already stands in the shadow of the Cross, and the Remnant of the poor that returns from the Exile is one of the most transparent prefiguration of the Church.” [5]
 
The two disciples also fulfill a prophecy of Zechariah. “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my associate, says the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd that the sheep may be dispersed.” [6] The disciples were the sheep whose shepherd was struck and they were dispersed without hope. These sheep on the road to Emmaus are like us all; they were hurt and looking for their shepherd. The reading for Morning Prayer on Holy Saturday expresses this longing and looking “Thus says the Lord: In their affliction, they shall look for me…” [7]The disciples walking to Emmaus were in affliction and were looking, but they did not know that they could look for Christ and even with Christ in their midst they could not see Him. Give some examples of how people do not know that they can look for Christ? What are examples of how Christ is in our midst yet we do not see Him? Give examples of why people sometimes only look for Christ in the midst of affliction?
 
In one of the earliest Church documents called The Didache, which is an instruction of the Lord given to the heathen by the twelve apostles, the Mass is explained as a place of gathering in which scattered sheep become one. “As this broken bread was scattered over the hills and then, when gathered, becomes one mass, so may Thy church be gathered from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom.” [8] The disciples on the road to Emmaus were scattered sheep far from the flock in Jerusalem, and it is through the “breaking of the bread” that they recognize Christ and are motivated to reunite with the Church gathered in Jerusalem. It is the Mass that brings all lost and scattered sheep back to the Church and to a deeper recognition of Jesus, our Good Shepherd. At the end of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we have two elements back to back that express the scattering and gathering that takes place in the Mass. During the Breaking of the Bread or the Fraction Rite, the Agnus Dei is sung and then the priest takes the host and breaks it over the paten and then elevates the broken host for all to see. This broken Jesus represents the brokenness of sin, which scatters the faithful from each other and from God. We see the host broken after the Agnus Dei, but the next time we see Our Lord will be right before we receive Him in Holy Communion. The brokenness is reconciled, as those who are scattered experience the union of Christ and with the Church through Holy Communion. 
 
We are all sheep and need to search, talk and journey with Jesus. “The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus presents this journeying, talking and searching together as the process by which the soul’s darkness is gradually illumined by walking with Jesus. It becomes clear that Moses and the Prophets – ‘all the Scriptures’ – had spoken of the events of Christ’s Passion: the ‘absurd’ now yields its profound meaning. In the apparently senseless event, the real sense of human journeying is truly opened up: meaning triumphs over the power of destruction and evil.”[23] [9]
 
In the Church’s liturgy of the Easter Vigil, the darkness is gradually illuminated. At the start of the Easter Vigil there is only the Light of Christ, shining from the Easter candle. As the priest lights the Easter candle from the new fire, he says, “May the light of Christ, rising in glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.”[24] [10] This light is slowly dispersed to each individual person, holding a candle. The candle is made from wax, which is the pure product of a flower. “For what could be more appropriate, what more festive, than that we should keep watch for the Flower of Jesse [Jesus] with torches that are the juice of flowers.”[25] [11]The wax also is white as snow, representing purity and the wick stands firm in the middle, like the soul, anxiously awaiting the heat and light of Christ. As the Easter Vigil continues, the one candle goes to several candles and then the lights of the Church are turned on in full, and the Alleluia is sung. Even in the midst of such brightness and joy, the tabernacle is still open and empty, like the open and empty tomb. The light and heat set our “hearts burning,” but there is still not the fullness for which we long, Christ is not yet present. It is only in the “breaking of the bread” that all is complete, that we receive Our Lord, in the Blessed Sacrament.
 
In the “breaking of the bread” we, like the disciples traveling to Emmaus ask Jesus to “stay with us”, and He graciously remains with us in the tabernacle, which was empty for the previous two days. The final candle, the sanctuary lamp, is lit and lifted high, to indicate that Jesus is here to stay, present in our Churches and longing to be present in our hearts. Christ remains in the tabernacle awaiting our invitation to make His home in the tabernacle of our soul. “It is not to remain in a golden ciborium that He comes down to us each day from heaven; it’s to find another heaven, infinitely more dear to Him than the first: the heaven of our soul, made to his image, the living temple of the adorable Trinity…Oh, my darling, think, then, that Jesus is there in the Tabernacle expressly for you, for you alone; He is burning with the desire to enter your heart.”[26] [12]

These disciples have an encounter with Christ that changes them. They begin their day downcast, walking away from Jerusalem, but end their day setting out toward Jerusalem with hope. “…they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them.” What a day for these two. It started in despair walking three hours away from their fears. When Jesus left them, it could have been dark already, perhaps 6 or 7 p.m. They choose to walk back to Jerusalem that night, another three hour walk, which would have had them meeting those gathered in the upper room late that night. They “set out at once” no matter what the cost. Yes, it is dark and late and they are tired. Yes they are going back to the place of their fears and despair, but yet they “set out at once.” What keeps us from “setting out at once” and being obedient to Christ without hesitation? How does God give us the Grace to conquer fears and put hope in the place of despair and doubt?

A popular Kansas City tattoo artist, “Whispering Danny” has an impactful story that he should shout for all to hear. But he can’t. His medical condition requires him to have tumors on his larynx and vocal cords removed every three or so months. It leaves his voice at a level just louder than a whisper. “I cannot deny something that has revealed itself to be true to me.” The disciples going to Emmaus turned from despair to hope, they truly could not deny Jesus, who revealed Himself to be true. They took this truth to the Church and forever served Christ and His Church spreading the Truth of Christ.

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church; 643
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church; 555
[3] Kevin Francis Bernadette Clay, "By His Wounds We Are Healed" Excerpt from Letter from the Founder #5,
[4] Abbot Gueranger; The Liturgical Year; Volume 6
[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church; 710
[6] Zechariah 13:7
[7] Hosea 5:15
[8] Fr. John A. Hardon; The Treasury of Catholic Wisdom; The Didache; Section 9
[9] Pope Benedict XVI; Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection; pg 203
[10] Preparation of the Candle at the Easter Vigil Liturgy
[11] Preface taken from the Ambrosian missal; Abbot Gueranger; The Liturgical Year; Volume 6
[12] Saint Therese of the Child Jesus