Sul cammino di Emmaus - III Domenica di Pasqua

The Emmaus episode is one of the most famous pages of the Gospel. Let's recall the facts. Where do the two disciples come from? On the evening of Good Friday, the spell of the friend who had captivated them with his Word and his extraordinary personality had ended. With his unique way of speaking about God, he could only be the Messiah. Easter has arrived, reality has returned, and they must continue to live with emptiness of heart. From the crowd of numerous disciples, Luke chooses two. Some think they were a couple, as some modern icons depict them. The disciples' sadness and lack of hope can be our own; their return to joy can help us rediscover happiness. Jesus reaches them incognito. He doesn't play hide-and-seek with them, but Luke tells us that "their eyes were kept from recognizing him." This is a spiritual blindness. Luke's work focuses on the theme of salvation and the salvation that brings joy: Mary singing the "Magnificat," the shepherds rejoicing, Zacchaeus coming down from the tree to welcome Jesus into his home ("Today salvation has come to this house"). The Emmaus scene begins darkly. The two disciples seem to be saying to God, "Our fathers hoped in you, and you delivered them; they cried out to you, and you saved them; trusting in you, they were not disappointed," as if to say to their traveling companion, "We were wrong; we believed for a long time!" Then the Risen One springs into action. He begins to explain Scripture, or rather, illuminates the latest events with Scripture. He offers them a wonderful lesson in exegesis. Pope Benedict XVI, in his apostolic exhortation "Verbum Domini," takes the Emmaus text as a model for how to explain the Scriptures. He explains the importance of the Word of God in connection with Christ's Passover. These words do not yet seem to satisfy the disciples. Only when Jesus took the bread, broke it, blessed it, and gave it. We stand before the Eucharist, in all its beauty and life-giving power. The Eucharist has always been experienced in connection with the Word of God. Pope Leo the Great associates the eyes that opened at the breaking of the bread with the eyes that opened our first parents after their act of disobedience. Genesis recalls the act of disobedience that brought about man's separation from God, while Emmaus recalls the act of obedience in which the desperate disciples regained new strength and a new joy of heart. In our Eucharistic liturgy, the breaking of the bread follows the reading of the Scriptures: thus we celebrate our full reconciliation with the sacrament of the New Creation.