Day 3
The Road to Emmaus
He is known in the breaking of the bread
c. 1609
Grace to ask for
Lord, let my heart burn within me when You speak.
"They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?""
Luke 24:32
Composition of Place
Walk the seven miles to Emmaus with Cleopas and his companion. They are devastated — the one they hoped would redeem Israel has been crucified. A stranger joins them on the road.
Points for Meditation
He walked with them in their grief
Jesus does not appear in glory and demand that they get over it. He walks beside them. He asks what they are discussing. He listens to their confusion and disappointment: "We had hoped he was the one." He meets them where they are, in their grief, before he reveals who he is.
He opened the Scriptures
"Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." The whole of Scripture — Law, Prophets, Writings — is a single story, and he is the key to reading it. The burning hearts of the disciples were the experience of hearing Scripture make sense for the first time. When was the last time Scripture burned in you?
"Stay with us"
They did not know who he was, but they did not want him to leave. "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening." Something in them recognized what they could not yet name. And at table, when he took the bread and broke it — they knew. He vanished from their sight. They ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others. The encounter sent them outward.
Colloquy
Ask for the grace of the burning heart: the experience of Scripture as living word addressed to you, of the Eucharist as genuine encounter with the Risen One. Ask to be sent out from that encounter as Cleopas was: with something to tell, and the urgency to tell it.
Remain in silence for a few minutes.
Do not rush to the next exercise.