Luke 24:13-35             Their eyes were opened

The disciples on the road today are a jumbled mess of emotions, ‘astounded’, ‘sad’, and it is no wonder.  Their friend and teacher has been brutally killed, along with their hopes and expectations, and now there are strange reports of a missing body.  They have lift the chaotic crowds, the violence and devastation behind them.  An experience like this, of complete desolation, affects one’s entire being.  We become closed in on ourselves, consumed by anger or grief, and it can be very difficult to see Christ walking beside us.  It can even cloud our memories of times when we did experience God’s love and grace in the past.  We can feel like we are spiralling downwards, cut off.

We read in the narrative today that something shifts for the disciples in the midst of their deep anguish and pain.  A ‘stranger’ falls into step with them, and this is no ordinary encounter.  Jesus walks with them, even though at first they do not recognise him.  He listens to their pain, and he does not interrupt them.  When they are finished, he puts their story into the context of a wider vision; he breaks through to them.  When we experience desolation, we often need another person to help open our eyes and remind us of who we truly are.  This person might be an anam cara (soul friend), someone who truly hears us and puts our story compassionately into the context of the bigger picture of our lives.  This can be consoling.  It is through experiences of great suffering (unfortunately) and also great love, that God’s light shines through.  The disciples recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread; their ‘eyes were opened’, their ‘hearts burned’.  The words of the scriptures and the enlightening meal go hand in hand, illuminating a new reality.  New energy is found, and they go bouncing back to Jerusalem; the place of death and pain is now transformed, and they are bursting to tell their companions,

© Triona Doherty & Jane Mellet, 2022.  A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Matthew.  (Dublin: Messenger Publications 2022).

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“The old news about Easter is that it is about resurrection.  The new news may be that it is not so much about the resurrection of Jesus as it is about our own . . . Jesus, you see, is already gone from the tomb.  The only question now is whether or not we are willing to abandon our own.                             – Joan Chittister