Emmaus

The road to Emmaus resembles our own journey. We are pilgrims. We can identify ourselves with these two disciples, who went back to their village, after Jesus’ death. It was all over. In fact, we only know the name of one of them, Cleophas; we can easily be the other one. We had placed our desires and ideals on that man whom we thought was the Messiah. We followed him for three years, expecting him to save Israel from the Romans. And they killed him; the most horrible death on the cross. We saw him dying and we are going back to our former life, all hope lost; we tried for a while, but it didn’t work out. We are going away from Jerusalem, away from God, the wrong way, against the traffic. You see sometimes on freeways a big red sign: wrong way; go back. Go back to your God.

Jesus comes out to meet us. He runs up to us, and he is walking with us, next to us, on our right hand side. But because of our discouragement, our self centredness, we don’t recognise him. A question, I’ve been thinking about: Are we sad because we don’t see, or because we are sad, we don’t see? I think normally sadness comes from blindness. It happens to us many times, when we fail to discover Jesus who is passing by our lives. He is passing by every day. He could have come with his glorified body, showing us his five wounds, but he came as traveler, as a pilgrim, like each one of us. He is a man. He comes to meet us in our journey. God comes down to our level, to follow us and to seek us out. We expect him to come with special effects, fire works, beautiful music and big miracles. And he passes by unnoticed, through the normal circumstances of our lives. Saint Teresa of Avila used to say that God is among the cooking pots.

And Jesus begins to walk and talk with us. He listens to what we have in our hearts, to our discouragement, to our lack of hope. And he begins to explain to us what the Scriptures had to say about him. He give us the other side of the story. He always has good news to share with us. And we need to listen to what Jesus has to say, specially when we are down. Jesus gives us an example of how to help people we come across in our lives. We run up to them, we meet them at their own level, we accompany them on their journey, listen to what they have to say, what they have in their hearts, share their emotions, understand their problems, and speak to them of what is in our hearts. We don’t need to impose our ideas or our opinions onto them. Just open our hearts to them, explain to them our own life journey. We take them with us to Emmaus, through our words, our affection, our example, and introduce them to Jesus.

When the two disciples of Emmaus arrived in their village, they asked Jesus to stay with them: stay with us because it is getting dark. We need to say the same to Jesus: stay with us because without you there is no light, without you there is no hope. You are our way, the truth and the life. Sitting at the table they recognise him at the breaking of the bread. It took them a long time to recognise him. The breaking of the bread was the beginning of the meal. Jesus broke the bread in a particular way. This was the name the early Christians used for the Eucharist: the breaking of the bread. It is a good question for us: Do we recognise Jesus at the Holy Mass? Do we believe that Jesus is in the tabernacle waiting for us? We see bread but it is Jesus. We need more faith.

When they recognised him, he disappeared. It happens to us: Jesus comes and goes. We need to keep searching. The Gospel says: “Did not our hearts burn within us when he opened the Scriptures to us?” They realised then of the warmth of walking with Jesus. We can get used to him, to the security of our faith, to the trus

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Thomas

When Jesus came to meet the apostles after the resurrection Thomas was not there. Where was he? We don’t know. Did he go shopping? Did he go fishing? Maybe he was still running away. All we know is that he wasn’t there. We need to be there when Jesus comes. No excuses. We cannot miss our Lord. We need Him. He comes when he likes and we need to be ready, waiting.

When Thomas came back the apostles told him, with a hint of jealousy: “Who do you think came while you were running around?” He didn’t know. They told him: “We have seen the Lord!” This is our Christian message, a great act of faith, witness to his resurrection. He couldn’t believe it. When they insisted, he became upset and proud, and he denied it: “Impossible!” And he declared more angrily: “I want not only to see his wounds, but to touch them and put my fingers in them.” Fair enough; we recognise the risen Christ through his wounds, but his statement was a bit too much. Thomas is a modern man, sceptical and empirical: “Unless I see and touch, I don’t believe.” Thanks to his unbelief our faith grows. The doubting Thomas increases our faith.

Today, eight days later, Thomas was there when Jesus appeared again. This time Thomas had learned the lesson and he is there. The first thing Jesus says is: “Peace be with you!” Be at peace. I have risen, it is all over, I have overcome death, be not afraid. The same angels say when they appear to men. These were the first words Saint John Paul II said when he was elected Pope: “Be not afraid!” We are afraid and angry because we are not at peace with ourselves.

When Thomas saw Jesus, he hid straight away behind the other apostles thinking: I hope he didn’t hear the silly thing I said the other day. He was ashamed now, all his arrogance gone. But Jesus hears everything; we cannot hide anything from him. He went directly to Thomas, walking through the people around him. He took his right hand, and, even though Thomas tried to resist, with the strong force of his glorious body, Jesus placed Thomas’s hand into his wounds saying: “Do not be faithless but believing.” Thomas could only say: “My Lord and my God!” A good act of faith in front of the Eucharist. Then Jesus praised all of us when we feel our lack of faith, and we are envious of Thomas: “Blessed are you who have not seen and yet believe.”

When Jesus left, Thomas kept staring at his hand. Tradition says that his hand became red, a reminder of his lack of faith. Thomas never forgot this encounter with Our Lord, the first one of a line of saints to find refuge in Jesus’ wounds. Later on, Thomas would had shown his hand to the early Christians, when they asked him about this scene, showing off with pride and a bit of arrogance: I am the only one who touched Jesus’ wounds. It is not completely true because the holy women anointed them with oil, when they buried Jesus’ body. When I read this Gospel, I would like to ask Thomas what he felt when he put his fingers into Jesus’ side. You could say that he felt the depth of Jesus’ love for him.

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Easter Sunday

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early on Sunday morning and found it empty. She was the first one to discover the empty tomb. It is very important for us the empty tomb. It shows that Jesus rose from the dead. It is empty because Jesus overcame death. It is an icon of the resurrection. Mary ran back and told Peter and John about the tomb. Both ran to the tomb to check it out. Saint John arrived first; he was younger and ran faster. Saint Jerome says that celibacy gives us wings. But he did not go in, out of deference for Peter. Peter was already regarded as the leader of the apostles.

The Gospel says that John “saw and believed.” What did he see? It is a traditional question. He saw the linen on the ground. John knew Jesus so well that he realised Jesus had risen. He was there on Friday night when they laid him in the tomb. And looking at how things were now around the tomb, he could figure out that Jesus walked away by himself. You can go to a room in your house and say: “I know who’s been here. I know what has happened.” The dirty dishes are in the sink, her clothes are all over the room, he’s been in the pantry because the chocolate has disappeared.

The Jews accused the apostles of stealing Jesus’ body. The Gospel says that the linen clothes were “lying there.” This expression in the Greek version seems to indicate that the clothes were flattened, as if they were emptied when the body of Jesus rose, as if he had come out of the clothes and bandages without their being unrolled. One can understand how this would amaze a witness, how unforgettable the scene would be. If you steal a body, you take it with its clothes; you don’t leave the linen behind.

The napkin which had been wrapped around his head was “rolled up in a place by itself.” The napkin was not on top of the clothes, but placed on one side. It was still rolled up but, unlike the clothes, it still had a certain volume, like a container or a cocoon, possibly due to the stiffness given it by the ointments. Jesus’ body must have risen in a heavenly manner, that is, in a way which transcended the laws of nature. It was not only a matter of the body being reanimated as happened, for example, in the case of Lazarus, who had to be unbound before he could walk. Jesus rose from his death and left the linen there, untouched, sliding out of them.

This remind us of the Holy Shroud, the famous relic in Turin. It is supposed to be the linen Peter and John found on the floor of the empty tomb. It has always attracted veneration. John Paul II said that “the Shroud is a mirror of the Gospel.” Benedict XVI had a lot of devotion to Holy Saturday because he was baptised on this day. He went to see the Holy Shroud and said: “this sacred Cloth can nourish and foster faith and reinvigorate Christian devotion because it spurs us to go to the Face of Christ, to the Body of the Crucified and Risen Christ, to contemplate the Paschal Mystery, the heart of the Christian message.” People go to see the shroud to contemplate Jesus’ face. This is our deepest human desire: to see God, to contemplate the face of Jesus, to be eternally happy through the vision of the divine glory, although millions of people are unaware of this aspiration. Happy Easter to you all.

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