Third Sunday of Easter, April 19 Homily

Yesterday, the children of our parish received their first Holy Communion.  What a beautiful occasion, as they received our Savior in the Eucharist for the first time!  

It got me thinking back to when I was in middle school – in particular 6th grade.  In 6th grade I hated math – absolutely hated it.  And I remember on Thursday’s we even had it twice in one day!  But what I really disliked about math was the feeling of being completely lost in class, and then not knowing how to do the homework at home.  I remember just pulling my hair out in frustration – perhaps now you better understand my choice of hairstyle.  But despite the torment I put myself through, every once in a while I had an ‘aha’ moment.  You know the type – where you sit looking at a problem, not sure where to even start, and then minutes (or hours) later the light bulb goes off, and all the sudden you “get it”.  

Well, it took the two disciples in today’s Gospel 3 days, but they finally “got it” too – a real bona fide ‘aha’ moment!  You see Cleopas and the other disciple were just leaving Jerusalem on Easter Sunday, a few days after Jesus’ death on the cross, and they were walking back to Emmaus, some 7 miles away.  So, if these two disciples were traveling at 2 miles an hour, how long would it take them to get to Emmaus?

But anyway, there these two disciples were, completely saddened that this mighty prophet was now three days dead in the tomb.  What confusion and frustration they must have had – worse than math homework.  You can just hear their anguish as they talk to that “stranger” they meet on the way.  They speak of “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word, who they were hoping would be the one to redeem Israel.”

But then, almost out of nowhere, they had their spiritual “aha” moment with Jesus.  And how did it happen?  Well, we’ll get back to that in a bit.

My friends, don’t we all feel like those two disciples sometimes – weary, tired, just “out of it”?  Maybe we get excited that finally things are starting to go right in our lives, only to have them go flop.  Or maybe we see family members with real problems just starting to get their lives back together, only to then watch them turn back to their old ways.  If we’re honest about it, such disappointments probably exist in our lives.

So why should our spiritual lives be any different?  I mean, take those two disciples again:  They gave up nearly everything to follow Jesus.  He promised them a better life.  He promised them God’s Kingdom.  And then He got crucified.  Poof.  Their dreams and hopes of a better world just disappeared before their eyes.

Perhaps spiritually we feel something similar at times too: we come to Mass each week, we try to follow the Church’s teachings, we try to be a good person – and yet somehow things just don’t always seem to change in our lives.  Maybe it’s the same old stuff, or we’re in a rut.

If that’s you, maybe what you need is an ‘aha’ moment.  Well how do we do it?  Remember those two disciples?  There they were walking on the road to Emmaus, when that “stranger”, Jesus, appears to them.  And out of the grief they’re feeling, they share their disappointment with him.  And while they don’t realize it at the time, what they were doing was letting Jesus into their lives – letting Him walk with them, letting Him meet them where they were – into their hurt and their disappointment and their brokenness.  No “aha” moment yet.

It’s only when Jesus later sits down and breaks bread together with them, as He did at the Last Supper, that “their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him.”  It’s only in the breaking of the bread – in the Eucharist – that everything begins to make sense.  At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke of the suffering and death He would endure.  He taught them that the bread is His Body, given for them, and the wine His Blood, to be shed for them.  And it was the very next day – Good Friday – when that sacrifice was definitively offered.  But, it was only by because of the cross that Jesus was able to enter death and defeat it once for all in His Resurrection.  

And the breaking of the bread makes present this very truth: Christ’s sacrifice on the cross seemed to bring nothing more than death; but in the end, it truly brought new life.  And similarly the disciple’s own suffering and disilusion and grief seemed nothing more than dead ends.  But they actually became places of encounter with Jesus to continue of the way.  And, in letting Him meet them in those painful places right where they were, Jesus was able to transform the sorrowful mysteries of their life into joyful mysteries.  

My friends, this is where the “aha” moment comes in.  Jesus Himself bore the cross.  Similarly, we are not spared from life’s hardships and difficulties.  But, it was by that very cross that the Father set aright all that was fallen in sin.  Similarly, when we understand that Jesus wants to meet us in those very places to breathe new life into us, that changes us.

But this only happens when we let Jesus into our personal lives totally and completely.  It’s not enough for us to just punch our card and do Mass.  If that’s all we do, then we’re just letting Him into our church lives.  What about the rest of our lives?  What about our personal lives, our struggles, our disappointments?  Do we let Him into those areas too, especially during our daily time of prayer, so that He can really be the Lord of our lives?  This is the beautiful thing – just as Jesus met those two disciples right where they were in life – literally depressed and on the way to Emmaus – so to does He do with us.  Jesus meets us right where we are, so that we can experience what His transforming grace makes possible in our lives.  God bless you.