22 April 2023 – 3rd Sunday of Easter (Year A) (Sunset Mass)

by Fr Fabian Dicom

This delightful story is proper to Luke. You can only find it in Luke.

It is much more than a story. It is a sophisticated Eucharistic catechesis if you really look at it carefully. The Liturgy of the Word followed by the Liturgy of the Eucharist. This whole experience on the Road to Emmaus. The conversation between Jesus and the two disciples in which they discussed recent events and He answers them is a clear outline of the primitive preaching in the Acts of the Apostles, the community of Luke.

Jesus lived, Jesus died and was raised from the dead.

Very clear teaching. A fact which is witnessed in the scriptures and proved by the testimony of apostles.

Justin Stanwix in his article, in his article (it appeared a long time ago in the Herald as well) writes this post-resurrection account of the two disciples meeting on the Road to Emmaus. He says (and I want to add this dimension to the catechesis of the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist), he says that the Road to Emmaus is a compelling metaphor for Synodality. I know you have been hearing the word synodality, synodality, synodality’. I believe you pray the prayer for the Synod right? Yeah. I hope you know what that means.

Synodality means journeying together as the people of God. It indicates a way of listening to each individual person as a member of the church. To understand how God might be speaking to all of us and in this way, synodality reminds us of the work of the Holy Spirit through each one of us. And through all of us working together for a common mission.

Now the Road to Emmaus story offers us a concrete example of a listening and actively hearing journey. The new people of God engaging on a discerning missionary journey through genuine dialogue, scripture reflection, breaking of the bread and a missionary response.

The Emmaus three, Jesus and the two disciples, were engaged in communion, in participation and mission. The three fundamental directions of the process of synodality, reflecting the essential element of what Pope Francis is advocating through his revolutionary approach to synodality.

Now going back to this road. Now the description of the situation of the two disciples is heartrending They have been impressed by Jesus the man. They hoped for a divine intervention while He was alive. But their hopes had been shattered by his death. They had obviously remained firmly tied to the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. But after Jesus had explained all that the scripture taught about the coming Messiah, they gained a deeper insight into the revelation of God in Christ. In the plan of God, the cross was the necessary road to glory.

Jesus interprets all the scriptures as referring to Him. In today’s First Readng and epistle, Peter also opens the scriptures to proclaim the meaning of Christ’s death according to the Father’s set plan. Foreknown before the foundation of the world, Jesus is described as the new Moses and the new Passover lamb. He is the one of whom David sang in today’s Psalm, who’s soul must not abandoned to corruption but was shown the path of life.

The two disciples also represent the early Christian community as Luke was writing to, that community that he was targeting. They too were going through, this community, were going through these difficult times in relation to their faith and their social life. Jesus was not physically present there anymore and they were facing all kinds of challenges to remain faithful to their belief. And there is a lot of ourselves in the two disciples and in the early community.

In some ways we the church today maybe able to relate to the experience of the disciples and the Lucan community. We may not be able to experience, we may not be able to recognise the presence of Jesus today because we may, we may be distracted by unimportant rituals and practices and drama that replace our journey of faith. Perhaps we are overwhelmed with the opulence and external structures of the church. Or perhaps divisions, scandals, exclusivity and clericalism have blinded us from recognising Jesus.

And then we can understand why the Pope wants to move in the direction of Synodality. That through this process, a serious process, that involves every single person, our eyes will be open to the most important and fundamental being for us.

Jesus Christ

The disciples did not really recognise Jesus until they breaking of the bread. Luke’s readers could not have missed this point. He chose the words very very carefully. Not only was the breaking of bread already a familiar description of the Eucharist, the terms describing the action of Jesus at table as we heard today, ‘He took, He blessed, He broke, He gave‘ are explicitly Eucharistic language.

Luke is telling us that in the Eucharist, we experience the meeting with Jesus, with Jesus Christ. He is assuring his community who needed to know that Jesus is alive and Jesus is present.

We share a meal with Jesus in which He gives Himself to us. The Risen Jesus is met whenever the church breaks bread. In every Eucharist we reenact the Easter Sunday at Emmaus. Jesus reveals Himself to us in our journey. He speaks to our hearts in the scriptures and then at the table of the altar, in the person of the priest, He breaks the bread. And they shared how their hearts had burned along the road as He opened the scriptures for them.

It took a while. It was not immediate despite the clues. Everything was clear but it took a while. They had to wait until their faith was nourished by the living bread in order to obtain greater insight. During the journey to Emmaus, according to Alfred McBride, Jesus patiently guided the two disciples from hopelessness to celebration. And also intended to nourish the two disciples’ faith to such an extent that they can see His real presence in the breaking of the bread.

They had been walking in the presence of the Risen Lord but were blind. And He disappeared from their physical sight yet they knew He remained with them. And what did they do? And what did they do?

They rushed back to Jerusalem. And this is very important. They rushed to Jerusalem to share this message with other disciples, to telling of their encounter with the Risen Lord, they deepened their communion and regenerated their participation. The communion and participation they had already experienced with the Lord. Consequently they went out to the whole world as Missionary Disciples of Christ. They reported how their MAster had vanished before the Emmaus pilgrims and about how amazing this was for them.

The disciples, now revitalised, reassured their hearers , all who were listening to them that Jesus had not left them. On the contrary, He appeared on multitude of occasions including in Jerusalem. In the Upper Room with closed doors He promised them that He would be with them for all time. Indeed, just as for the early Christians, this early Christians, this is the case every time we gather, nourish ourselves on His word, eat and drink His body and blood and go forth to spread the Good News to the whole world, baptising in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The mission we are called to, a mission that must follow and this mission of Synodality.

And what is this mission? It is the mission of Jesus. John 10:10 ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.’

And He shows us how to live that and how everybody has life. And the scriptures are full of it and the chief way He did it ins in Luke 4:16-18, ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring the Good News to the poor, to give food to the hungry and to set free all those who are oppressed’. Very clear.

As the Emmaus and other disciples journeyed with Jesus in their synodal way, so are we invited towards a deeper participation, deeper communion and therefore possessing the life given to us by Jesus. And nourished by Him, let us go out of ourselves, go out of our rituals and rights, our preoccupation with all the externals, go out of our divisiveness and discriminatory attitudes, go out of our condensation and aggressiveness, our hate and violence. We are called to go forth to build bridges rather than walls, to heal and not to wound, to love and not to hate.

Let us go forth from our church buildings and other communities are a pilgrim people, as synodal people deepening our communion with God, ourselves with each other and all of creation. Let us participate fully, consciously and actively to spread the Good News, to be the Good News for our world.

Let the best of ourselves bring out the best in others. Let us pray for that.

Click below to listen to the homily and watch the video:-

Click to live-stream Mass on 22 April 2023