HOMILY/REFLECTION FOR WEDNESDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF EASTER YEAR B (1)

HOMILY/REFLECTION FOR WEDNESDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF EASTER YEAR B

HOMILY THEME: THE APPEARANCE ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

BY: Fr. Luis PERALTA Hidalgo

HOMILY:

”Were not our hearts filled with ardent yearning when He was talking to us on the road and explaining the Scriptures?” Luke 24:13-35.

Today we are reassured by the Gospel that Jesus is alive and continues to be the center around which the disciples’ community is built. The gathering of the community, the dialog with brothers and sisters who share the same faith, the reading of the Word of God, the love shared and expressed through fraternity and service, is precisely the ecclesial context in which the disciples can encounter the Resurrected. The disciples filled with grief, couldn’t even imagine that that stranger was in fact their Master, now resurrected. But they felt «an ardent yearning» in their hearts (cf. Lk 24:32), when He talked, «explaining» the Scriptures. The light of the Word softened their hearts and «their eyes were opened» (Lk 24:31).

The story of the disciples of Emmaus is useful as a guide to us in the long journey through a path of doubts, afflictions and sometimes even bitter disillusionments; the Divine traveler continues to be our companion who introduces us, by explaining the Scriptures, to the comprehension of God’s mysteries. Upon the fulfillment of this encounter the light of the Word is followed by the light that emerges from the «Bread of Life», through which Christ fulfills perfectly His promise that He would be with us «always, until the end of the age» (Mt 28:20). The Holy Father Benedict XVI explains that «The proclamation of the Lord’s Resurrection lightens up the dark regions of the world in which we live».

Fr. Luis PERALTA Hidalgo SDB (Lisboa, Portugal)