The two disciples of Emmaus represent all of us, whether we are disciples or not. We were hoping! But what happened has taken away hope from us. Disappointed about ourselves, God and people, we would like to get rid of everything. Sometimes even of life itself. Our dreams are shattered and we are defeated on all the different fronts of our humanity: we are made to look like our life-sucking idols. We have feet but we do not walk if not in the direction that is contrary to the desire that had sustained us up to now. We have a mouth but it is used not to communicate but to litigate. The eyes, blinded by our nightmares, are hostages of our fears: they see only frustration and evil. The countenance is our identity and glory because it shows our heart but it has now disappeared: it is dark, erased by the death we hold inside us. The Risen Jesus carries on His mission. While alive in this world, He was performing miracles, healing hands and feet, opening eyes and ears, untying tongues and reanimating corpses with a supplement of days in this world. These were sensational things, but not very important. They are valued as signs of the things the Risen Christ wants to do on behalf of each one of us: to free us from a life that is like death, similar to our dead idols, in order to give back to us an integral life that resembles Him, the Living One.
Here, we are describing the ongoing mission of the Risen Christ who makes Himself close to everyone who is resigning from life. He is always with us: He is Word and Bread that give us – and give us again everyday – the light of life. He accompanies every escape of ours; He enters every frustration and failure with us. We fail to recognize Him. He looks as if He is not there, or He appears to be irritated or even alienated from the very things that concern Him before than us. He, however, listens to us, allowing our negative sides to emerge. Then, when we are accepted, He dares make an objective and clear-cut diagnosis. We are like this because we are affected in our heart and brain. Our heart is almost extinct and our brain is clouded over, ready as we always are to listen to our own fears, but reluctant to accept God’s promises.
After the diagnosis, Jesus starts the therapy: reading again the Word, He shows how God’s promise was fulfilled beyond every prevision in what they retained to be a failure. The cross is the end of our thoughts about Him and us. But because it is the revelation of God as absolute love for us as His children, infinitely loved and capable of loving like Him. While they are listening, evening falls. In the meantime, the seed of the Word causes light and hope sprout in them. Darkness and fear dissolve, hopes and loves are revived. Their heart was burning while listening to the Word: it is made for love, fire that burns and doesn’t consume! At last, the desire is born: “Remain with us, Lord, because it is nearly evening!” With You, there will be no more night. Since the first evening with Adam, God has been expecting this invitation. Patiently, He had endured for millennia: He is love who loves and wants to be loved! But He cannot but respect our freedom. Now at last, He is longed for and invited. So, “He went in so as to stay with them.” And He will always abide with us, with His Word that illumines the minds and make the heart burning, so that we may keep longing for Him.
At last, the Word, that is love, will become also our Bread, our life. Our eyes are opened and we recognize our countenance in His face. Our mind and heart are changed: our understanding and our longing. Our eye and our tongue are changing: we see what is real and speak what is true. He becomes invisible: His countenance is now visible in our face, transfigured as it is into His image. And our feet, instead of running away from Jerusalem, are moving towards the Father and the brothers. In the Word and Bread, everyday, in our disappointments, we find the viaticum that frees us from the clutches of death and puts us back in the way of life. It is the encounter with the Risen Christ that makes us rise to a new life, full of trust, hope and love. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brethren. ©Popoli – www.popoli.info
