Catechism Links[1]
CCC 1346-1347: The Eucharist and
the experience of the disciples at Emmaus
CCC 642-644, 857, 995-996: The apostles and
disciples as witnesses of the Resurrection
CCC 102, 601, 426-429,2763:
Christ the key to interpreting all Scripture
CCC 457, 604-605, 608,615-616, 1476, 1992:
Jesus, the Lamb offered for our sins
 |
| “Supper at Emmaus” by Willem Herreyns, 1808 |
Reading I: Acts 2:14, 22-33
On the day of Pentecost, Peter
stood up with the Eleven,
raised his voice, and proclaimed:
"You who are Jews, indeed
all of you staying in Jerusalem.
Let this be known to you, and
listen to my words.
"You who are children of
Israel, hear these words.
Jesus the Nazorean was a man
commended to you by God
with mighty deeds, wonders, and
signs,
which God worked through him in
your midst, as you yourselves know.
This man, delivered up by the set
plan and foreknowledge of God,
you killed, using lawless men to
crucify him.
But God raised him up, releasing
him from the throes of death,
because it was impossible for him
to be held by it.
For David says of him:
I saw the Lord ever before me,
with him at my right hand I shall
not be disturbed.
Therefore my heart has been glad
and my tongue has exulted;
my flesh, too, will dwell in
hope,
because you will not abandon my
soul to the nether world,
nor will you suffer your holy one
to see corruption.
You have made known to me the
paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your
presence.
My brothers, one can confidently
say to you
about the patriarch David that he
died and was buried,
and his tomb is in our midst to
this day.
But since he was a prophet and
knew that God had sworn an oath to him
that he would set one of his
descendants upon his throne,
he foresaw and spoke of the
resurrection of the Christ,
that neither was he abandoned to
the netherworld
nor did his flesh see corruption.
God raised this Jesus;
of this we are all witnesses.
Exalted at the right hand of God,
he poured forth the promise of
the Holy Spirit
that he received from the Father,
as you both see and hear."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary on Acts 2:14, 22-33
This is the first of the six
professions (“kerygma” or proclamations) in Acts about the resurrection set
immediately following the Pentecost event. In this proclamation, Peter,
speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem (many of whom would have been in the crowd
that saw Jesus crucified), first tells them that: “This man (Jesus)” demonstrated, through “signs
and wonders,” that he was the Christ. He then makes the accusation: “you
killed,” and concludes with, “but God raised him up.” He reminds
them that David had been promised an eternal dynasty (quoting Psalm 16:8-11), and
that promise had been fulfilled in the resurrected Messiah, Jesus.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 16:1-2a and5, 7-8, 9-10, 11
R. (1) Keep me safe, O God;
you are my hope.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Keep me, O God, for in you I take
refuge;
I say to the LORD, "My Lord
are you."
O LORD, my allotted portion and
my cup,
you it is who hold fast my lot.
R. Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I bless the LORD who counsels me;
even in the night my heart
exhorts me.
I set the LORD ever before me;
with him at my right hand I shall
not be disturbed.
R. Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Therefore my heart is glad and my
soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in
confidence;
Because you will not abandon my
soul to the nether world,
nor will you suffer your faithful
one to undergo corruption.
R. Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.
or:
R. Alleluia.
You will show me the path to
life,
fullness of joys in your
presence,
the delights at your right hand
forever.
R. Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.
or:
R. Alleluia.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary on Ps 16:1-2a and 5,7-8, 9-10, 11
Psalm 16 is a song of
thanksgiving that has become prophetic. It speaks clearly of the resurrection
accomplished in Christ. It is a hymn of trust in God. Each strophe ends with an
affirmation of faithfulness. Key, in the context of the Easter season, is the
idea of trust in God who has conquered death and offers the same gift. ("Because
you will not abandon my soul to the nether world, nor will you suffer your
faithful one to undergo corruption.") The psalmist prays that God will
shield the faithful from harm, and expresses confidence in the Lord’s
salvation; closing the passage with praise for God’s loving mercy.
CCC: Ps 16:9-10 627
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading II: 1 Peter 1:17-21
Beloved:
If you invoke as Father him who
judges impartially
according to each one’s works,
conduct yourselves with reverence
during the time of your sojourning,
realizing that you were ransomed
from your futile conduct,
handed on by your ancestors,
not with perishable things like
silver or gold
but with the precious blood of
Christ
as of a spotless unblemished
lamb.
He was known before the
foundation of the world
but revealed in the final time
for you,
who through him believe in God
who raised him from the dead and
gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are
in God.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary on 1 Pt 1:17-21
This selection is concerned primarily
with the call of God's people to holiness and to mutual love. St. Peter
encourages them to act in accord with their call, and through those actions
accept their redemption through the blood of Christ.
At the beginning of the passage,
St. Peter cautions the faithful: “If you invoke as Father him who judges
impartially […] conduct yourselves with reverence.”
“Refers to addressing God as ‘Abba’ or ‘Father’ in prayer (Matthew 6:9; Romans 8:15; CCC 2780-82).” –
“impartially: i.e. with absolute fairness. Because God exercises perfect
justice, he cannot be bribed to show favoritism toward some and not others (Deuteronomy 10:17)
according to his deeds.”[5]
The “unblemished lamb” is
a clear reference to the Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7) whose
blood caused death to pass by (Exodus 12:1-14), the
expression of God’s salvation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gospel: Luke 24:13-35
That very day, the first day of
the week,
two of Jesus' disciples were
going
to a village seven miles from
Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about
all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they
were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and
walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented
from recognizing him.
He asked them,
"What are you discussing as
you walk along?"
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said
to him in reply,
"Are you the only visitor to
Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in
these days?"
And he replied to them,
"What sort of things?"
They said to him,
"The things that happened to
Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed
and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers
both handed him over
to a sentence of death and
crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would
be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since
this took place.
Some women from our group,
however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in
the morning
and did not find his body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a
vision of angels
who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went
to the tomb
and found things just as the
women had described,
but him they did not see."
And he said to them, "Oh,
how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the
Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?"
Then beginning with Moses and all
the prophets,
he interpreted to them what
referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to
which they were going,
he gave the impression that he
was going on farther.
But they urged him, "Stay
with us,
for it is nearly evening and the
day is almost over."
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he
was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened
and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
"Were not our hearts burning
within us
while he spoke to us on the way
and opened the Scriptures to us?"
So they set out at once and
returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered
together
the eleven and those with them
who were saying,
"The Lord has truly been
raised and has appeared to Simon!"
Then the two recounted
what had taken place on the way
and how he was made known to them
in the breaking of bread.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary on Lk 24:13-35
This story of the disciples on
the road to Emmaus is only found in Luke’s Gospel. There is a mention in Mark (Mark 16;12) that is vague but
probably refers to this event. The actual location of Emmaus is not known, but
it is estimated that it was between 7 and 18 miles from Jerusalem. The focus of
the story is the unrecognized Jesus (similar: in John 20:11-18, Mary
Magdalene thought he was a gardener). Jesus interprets scripture and then
he is recognized in the breaking of the bread (the Eucharistic reference).
"In the course of their
conversation with Jesus, the disciples' mood changes from sadness to joy; they
begin to hope again, and feel the need to share their joy with others, thus
becoming heralds and witnesses of the risen Christ."[6]
CCC: Lk 24:13-49 1094; Lk
24:13-35 1329, 1347; Lk
24:15 645, 659; Lk
24:17 643; Lk
24:21 439; Lk
24:22-23 640; Lk
24:25-27 112, 601; Lk
24:26-27 572, 652; Lk
24:26 555, 710; Lk
24:27 555, 2625; Lk
24:30 645, 1166; Lk
24:31 659; Lk
24:34 552, 641
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homily:
Emmaus – The
story that was proclaimed in the Gospel of St. Luke today mentions the village
by name. Yet if you look at a map, even
the earliest maps of that region, you would not find it. Yes, there are references to it in early
manuscripts and there is speculation that places it between 8 and 17 miles
north east of Jerusalem. But as a
physical place you could not go visit it if you took one of the pilgrimages to
the Holy Land, except by speculation and extrapolation. Emmaus does not exist today in a physical
sense. Yet, as a destination, it is a
place we are all seeking at our own pace and in our own way.
The disciples who
were traveling that way on the day the Lord was revealed in the resurrection
were probably traveling there in fear.
They had seen the Son of God beaten, mocked, crucified and then skewered
with a lance as he slumped dead against the cross. The long awaited Messiah was no more. They had seen his body hastily laid in a
tomb.
We hear echoes of
the emotions they felt in the passages from Acts of the Apostles, and the First
Letter of Peter. In Acts we heard the
Apostles boldly using the gift of the Holy Spirit they had just received at
Pentecost, as they told their Jerusalem audience: “This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you
killed, using lawless men to crucify him.”
We can almost see St. Peter pointing his finger at the members of the
Sanhedrin, the Jewish leadership. And
then in St. Peter’s First Letter the Apostle says:
“…conduct yourselves with reverence
during the time of your sojourning,
realizing that you were ransomed from
your futile conduct,
handed on by your ancestors,
not with perishable things like silver
or gold
but with the precious blood of Christ
as of a spotless unblemished lamb.”
We hear the awe and reverence
of the Apostle as he recalls the Savior bleeding upon the cross, the innocent
Lamb of God, offering himself as our sacrifice of atonement.
Those disciples on the road
to Emmaus were not just frightened; they were crushed, fleeing to a place of
safety perhaps. One record of the
journey by these disciples to Emmaus, found in the manuscripts of Eucebius of
Caesarea, refers to a church in the house of Cleopas in that village. It is states that Cleopas was one of the
disciples who traveled that road.
Putting the pieces together, we can speculate that they were headed for
the house of Cleopas to sort things out.
As our two fleeing disciples traveled, they are joined by a stranger (we
wonder if they thought he was a gardener as Mary Magdalene had just done).
It is such an easy analogy;
isn’t it? How often do we find ourselves
fleeing to places of safety when we are faced with trials or difficult
situations? How often do we seek the
help of God and travel that road in fear seeking answers to the things in our
lives that make no sense?
And how like those frightened
disciples are we? How often do we seek
answers only to find out later that the Lord has already answered us and we
just did not recognize it? He was walking with us and we did not know it.
We can go further too. When the disciples finally recognized the
Lord in his Eucharistic celebration they suddenly regained their courage. They found the strength that had left them in
the fear of the moment, and ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others who they
had encountered.
Yes, the village of Emmaus
does not exist on any map, but it is certainly the destination each of us who
hope to follow Christ is constantly seeking.
We travel a path that leads to a place where the Lord will reveal
himself to us in his glorified body, sitting at a table with us, and giving us
the sudden knowledge that he has been walking with us the whole way, and we didn’t
even know it.
Our journey this Easter
season is still ahead of us as we look toward Pentecost. As we travel that road may we all be
comforted in knowing that the Lord was with us, even when we did not know he
was there.
Pax
In other years on this date: Optional Memorial for Saint Pius V, Pope, Religious
[1]
Catechism links are taken from the Homiletic Directory, Published by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline
of the Sacraments, 29 June 2014
[2]
The picture is “Supper at Emmaus” by Willem Herreyns, 1808
[3]
S.S.Commemoratio
[4]
The readings are taken from the New American Bible with the exception of the
Psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for
English in Liturgy (ICEL). This re-publication is not authorized by USCCB and
is for private use only.
[5]
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, © 2010, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA.
pp.452
[6]
The Navarre Bible, “Gospels and Acts”, Scepter
Publishers, Princeton, NJ, © 2002, pp. 513
No comments:
Post a Comment