I like it because it invites me to keep re-discovering the risen Jesus amidst the turmoil that daily life can sometimes be. This is an important lesson especially when I am bogged down by life’s burdens and distractions that sometimes make me forget that Jesus is already there for and with me.

But there is something more beautiful and instructive in this passage.

Cleopas and his friend recognized Jesus at the moment he broke bread with them. This moment gave them life again; it nourished them as believers. Through action and word, Jesus made whole again what was once broken for and lost to his disciples through death: the continuing friendship with him, who is truly risen and alive.

For Luke, this moment is Eucharistic. Jesus’ presence is revealed not only in his act of thanksgiving and breaking bread but in the healing these brokenhearted disciples experienced. In the company of the risen Christ, their earthly lives took on a new meaning; awakened from their darkness, their lives were renewed in the light of Christ. Indeed, Jesus’ promise, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them,” was fully expressed in the new found appreciation they had of themselves: they truly were disciples of Jesus, the Risen Christ.

If we can recognize in the above that the Eucharist heals, then, we can begin to admit that we, who gather for Mass, are a broken but hopeful people. We are broken because of sin but hopeful because of faith. We are pained by our brokenness yet we believe we can be healed because Jesus is present with and among us. To embrace this truth is to reclaim our identity as Christian.

When we acknowledge this we can re-appreciate our gatherings at Mass as a return to that commonwealth we too share with Cleopas and his friend at Emmaus--the gift of being in Jesus’ good company.

And in his good company, Jesus asks us to always see each other anew, with love and compassion. This is especially needed when a community is sometimes divided by petty jealousies, small mindedness and disdainful pride and where refutation persists and dialogue is abysmally absent. At Mass, those of us who make up this community are challenged to recognize how alike each other we really are, frail and weak, yet called into communion with Jesus and with one another. Gathered around the altar, we are honestly no different. We are all God’s children. To come to Mass then as a worshipping community that is painfully fractured is grace. Each time we do this in our brokenness, we do nothing less than to stand before our God and each other and humbly confess our communal need for reconciliation, healing and peace.

Perhaps this is the message some of us and some of our communities need to hear at this time. The Eucharistic moment at Emmaus offers itself as a contemplation of what we ought to focus on in times of misunderstanding, darkness and despair.

And in that moment we admit that the healing Jesus bestowed upon his two disciples is also balm for our fragmented communities, we too will run like them back to the very place of pain, confusion and dismay, Jerusalem, our Jerusalems, to preach to our sisters and brothers that Jesus has risen, he is with us and he will heal us by transfiguring our communities again!

Indeed, isn't the good news of Emmaus worth sharing with someone or some community that is broken and in pain today?

painting: road to emmaus, amercian, 18th century