New York, April 26, 2020. | Third Sunday of Easter.
by f. Luis CASASUS, General Superior of the men’s branch of the Idente missionaries.
Acts of the Apostles 2: 14.22-33; First Letter of Peter 1: 17-21; Saint Luke 24: 13-35.
The disciples of Emmaus were more than discouraged, more than depressed, more than disconsolate. They had lost the purpose of their life, the dream for which they risked everything had disappeared. At that moment, their lives seemed to be meaningless.
In his inspiring book Man’s Search for Meaning, the psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl wrote about his ordeal as a concentration camp inmate during the Second World War.
Frankl found that those who survived longest in concentration camps were not those who were physically strong, but those who retained a sense of control over their environment. Those who, even in the most absurd, painful, and dispiriting of circumstances, discovered that life can still be given a meaning, and so too can suffering.
Life in the concentration camp taught him that our main drive or motivation in life is neither pleasure, as Freud had believed, nor power, as Adler thought, but meaning. According to Frankl, meaning can be found through:
– Experiencing reality by interacting authentically with the environment and with others.
– Giving something back to the world through creativity and self-expression, and,
– Changing our attitude when faced with a situation that we cannot change.
Of course, the disciples of Emmaus could not carry out these three “measures” by themselves, with their own strength. First of all, they left the community whose members continued to search for an answer to what had happened. In fact, they preferred to go on their own, convinced that no one can make sense out of certain tragedies. For instance, they did not verify the women’s experience and this could have been enlightening for them.
When we are disappointed, the first thing that comes to mind is to seek an escape. We want to get out of whatever situation it may be: a relationship, a job… or our life. Disappointment is often accompanied by anger, and anger blinds. That is why, as we make our escape from a frustrating situation, we are not even exactly sure where we are going.
This is what happens in today’s Gospel. Two disciples distance themselves from the place where they had experienced the most powerful of love stories, as if to erase everything that had happened.
We are just like them. We too try to flee when our relationships become difficult. We try to avoid the suffering they imply. We escape, like these two disciples, without knowing where we’re going. We just need to get away. Returning to Emmaus then is like going back to one’s past, pretending nothing had happened.
But it is true that our heart can be set on fire, as it was for the disciples in today’s Gospel. By feeling love, like St. Peter when he received Christ’s forgiveness or like any of us when we feel welcomed by a community and by God in person.
What does it mean when the heart begins to burn?
It is a very powerful expression, because it means that old ghosts are thrown into the fire and, at the same time, that a new light shines in what was darkness.
Let us not think it is an unusual phenomenon or one reserved for certain people. I give a vulgar example of an ordinary person. Myself.
When I was a teenager and listened to the (for me) terribly boring Friday afternoon Latin class, in an instant my heart would drag me to the next day, Saturday, to the moment we would play a basketball game. And so, my imagination flew, the smile would return to my face (with the teacher’s amazement) and the tedium was transformed into joy.
Of course, that is just a caricature of what happens when the heart burns. In the spiritual life, when the heart is on fire, there are unexpected consequences. For example, the Gospel text says that the disciples set out at once and returned to Jerusalem….Is not that totally contradictory to the plan the disciples had to rest? In fact, they had told Christ: Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over. They had planned to stay at Emmaus and sleep for the night, but they got up at that same hour and walked back a winding uphill journey…so they must have been up walking all through the night, something that was significantly more dangerous back then than it is even today. They put their lives at risk because their hearts were on fire.
It is a perfect example of what our father Founder calls Aspiration in our mystical life. The fire of the Holy Spirit is not always a discreet flame; at times it comes as a strong and fiery breath that we call Expiration and provokes in us energetic responses, awakening dormant virtues and, above all, creating in us what the world calls a renewed Project of Life and in our spiritual experience we know as Aspiration. Instead of going back to our securities, to our Emmaus, we return to Jerusalem with a greater clarity about how to offer our life.
Bible scholars don’t really know where Emmaus is located. In not localizing Emmaus, we can open to the possibility that Emmaus is…everywhere. Wherever we are on the road and at every mealtime, Jesus comes to us, filled with energy and possibility, and the joy of resurrection.
Whenever we spend time listening to the Holy Spirit and follow wherever God leads us…and sometimes God leads us to some pretty strange places and to encounter some pretty strange people… then our heart burns. A burning heart is a heart with a new hope and a new sense of faith born. Now the disciples could do anything. A rekindled heart is able to join a group of burning hearts.
As St. John Paul II pointed out in Dolentium Hominum (1985), the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts that compassion which Christ the physician reveals to us is the burning heart of the vocation of the physician (Rom 5:5). What Jesus expresses before our eyes, as a model to follow, the Spirit impresses in us as an effective force.
Our road to Emmaus is not a one-off journey, but a constant life-long process of discovering the divine persons who walk beside us. Certainly, the disciples of Emmaus had a hard time realizing that it was Christ who was accompanying them. We also have this experience, for example when we are with unkind or overbearing people, or on other occasions when someone shows a lack of sensitivity that hurts us.
The disciples of Emmaus also believed that the wayfarer who accompanied them was ignorant… Our task is to see how Christ fights in the soul of our neighbor (just as in ours!) to be heard. He wants to explain to us the meaning of pain and death and, even if we cannot fully understand it, He allows us to see how the pain of one person changes the sensitivity of others and, if they are accompanied by a disciple of Jesus, their heart will begin to burn.
God doesn’t play with human beings, he doesn’t hide. But he needs the collaboration of the workers in his vineyard to reach out the people. That is his will, that is his trust in us… and our responsibility. It is a real miracle because, actually, we have a very short spiritual vision and we cannot easily imagine at which point our neighbor’s life is. Perhaps a little story, not without humor, will remind us of that.
Not long ago, in a conflictive neighborhood, an elderly woman went to the grocery store to do some shopping. When she returned to her car, she noticed four men getting into it. The woman dropped her shopping bags, reached into her purse, and pulled out a small handgun that she carried for protection. She ran to the front of her car, aimed the pistol at the men, and began screaming at them at the top of her lungs. She ordered them out of the car and warned that if they didn’t, she would blow their brains out: I know how to use this gun, and don’t think I won’t! she screamed. The four men didn’t hesitate. The threw open the car doors, scrambled out, and started running as fast as they could.
The woman was trembling, but kept her composure. When she was certain the men were gone, she put the gun back in her purse, picked up her bags, and loaded them into the back seat of the car. She then climbed into the driver’s seat and decided to go immediately to the police station to report the incident. But there was a small problem. Her key wouldn’t fit in the ignition. A quick glance around the interior confirmed that she was in the wrong car! Her vehicle was parked four spaces away in the same aisle of the parking lot. She loaded her bags into her own car and drove to the police station to confess what she had done. When she told the story to the sergeant, he couldn’t control his laughter. He just pointed to the other end of the counter where four very shaken men were reporting… a carjacking by a mad, elderly woman.
Neither what the old lady imagined about the young people nor what they thought about the woman resembled reality. Many of us have a tendency to think the worst of people and look only at their shortcomings.
How do we expect to be more sensitive than the disciples of Emmaus to the presence of Christ in their lives or in ours?
As in the Gospel text, the First and Second Readings remind us of the unique power of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ to change our vision and our lives. The first apostles were aware of the ignorance of the first communities and this is why Saint Peter excused the people for their ignorance. He was not angry with them or sought to take revenge on them. Now I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing; this was the way God carried out what he had foretold, when he said through all his prophets that his Christ would suffer (Acts 3:17-18).
In the story of the disciples of Emmaus, the elements of the celebration of the Eucharist are present: Those walking together on the Road gather together and meet Jesus, then the Liturgy of the Word with the homily and, finally, the breaking of bread. Only at the time of the Eucharistic communion the eyes open and the disciples realize that the Risen One is in their midst, but note that, without the Word, they would not have come to discover the Lord in the Eucharistic bread. This central experience draws us to participate in the work of proclaiming the message of Christ and sharing our experience of it with others that they may also share it.
Suffering and death makes no sense in our life if we see them as isolated events. When we see the events of our life as unrelated events, they do not make sense. Without faith in the resurrection, defeats are defeats, life ends with death, and is a senseless tragedy. The way of the cross is inconceivable and absurd for the world. It is necessary that somebody explains it, not as one who transmits an arid theological culture but as one burning up the hearts.
Probably, it is opportune to end up remembering the necessary condition to inflame the heart of our neighbor:
We can be sure that we know God only by keeping his commandments. Anyone who says, ‘I know him’, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, refusing to admit the truth. But when anyone does obey what he has said, God’s love comes to perfection in him (1Jn 2: 4-5).
