Emmaus: Towards a Real Presence (Part I)

Emmaus.

On the road,

seeking what is real,

the presence of Christ.

My heart breaks.

In all directions, headlines proclaim violence

on the weak, the children, the innocent,

brothers and sisters of color, of different faith,

too different, too uncomfortable.

A violent end.

And we react with fear and devastation

over and over again.

While our churches remain silent

as if nothing happened

and we turn inward with grief and sadness.

I walk unaware of Christ beside me.

Despairing

on the road to Emmaus.

Perhaps belief in Jesus’ real presence

in the Body and Blood of Christ

comes when we are truly present

on this road walking

toward each other.

When we see and encounter the people around us.

All people.

When we dare to reach out,

with tenderness and mercy,

a spirit of fraternity

and act so as to include,

bring comfort,

initiate healing,

foster wholeness.

Perchance our witness to Christ’s life

and what he taught us

can help the people of God to see

what it is to share in the Eucharist.

Words from the mouth of God,

not by bread alone do we live.

Our source and summit,

food for the journey.

In the breaking of the bread

our eyes are opened to Christ

a community of faith

together on the road to Emmaus.

Walking forward in the communion line as if on my road to Emmaus, I focus my attention on “the source and summit of the Christian life.” So focused, I neglect who is in my periphery, the people of God, the community of faith. I pass the people I don’t know or barely know and I think about my sin, my unworthiness, my silent sufferings, not wanting to be bothered with the concerns of others: the loneliness, anxiety and despair that are rampant in our world. So intent, tunnel-visioned even, I ignore Christ that walks before and behind me, including the ones on the margins of our churches and our world. Pulled forward by our fears and remnants of faith, we move as if alone and isolated, lost in our newsfeeds and conspiracies. According to Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, chronic loneliness and disconnection effects over half of the people in our country. This then leads to a loss of hope. Reality, truth and connection are hard to come by. Yet I know where a sense of belonging can begin.

The Body of Christ

When did we stop taking responsibility for the care of each other? How can we love the people suffering in our midst? I walk in the communion line at Mass, happily oblivious of the people and families who suffer in silence. We walk up as individuals concerned only with our own salvation and unable to see one another. As a country, our individualism seizes us and has become a sickness in our churches. What has become of our communities of faith?

We are called to witness the freedom that is proclaimed by the Gospel, offering hope to the hopeless and an outstretched hand to the isolated and despairing. It is a freedom that aligns our desires with God’s will, something that happens over time for those who seek it. This freedom helps us to become our authentic selves, free to live as God created us to be, to love and show mercy with abundance. Yet, a skewed sense of freedom has pervaded our national culture. Divided by politics that have invaded our understanding of the Word of God, we struggle to pray a unified prayer as the Body of Christ. We are divided inside the church just as our nation is divided by ideologies on the outside. St. Paul would not be happy with us. 

As St. John Paul II (d. 2005) wrote, “The Apostle Paul, for his part, says that it is unworthy of a Christian community to partake of the Lord’s Supper amid division and indifference to the poor (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-22, 27-34).” Yet, we still partake of the Lord’s Supper, Sunday after Sunday. He continues, “[We are to be] one body in Christ (cf. 1 Cor 10:17)…. The Eucharist creates communion and fosters communion. Saint Paul wrote to the faithful of Corinth explaining how their divisions, reflected in the Eucharistic gatherings, contradicted what they were celebrating, the Lord’s Supper. [They needed to]…return to the spirit of fraternal communion (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34).” Fraternity refers to brotherly and sister love, affection, and tenderness towards each other.

A lack of fraternity in our faith communities can affect how we view the Eucharist. Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium, wrote, “The Eucharist, although it is the fulness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak” (p 40). For much of my life, I believed that the Eucharist was my prize for doing the right thing, perfectly reflecting God’s love. Now, I realize it is unreservedly God’s gift of grace. This means that grace is available, in fact already within us, for all who thirst now or in the future for the presence of Christ. I cannot put boundaries or obstacles around the Eucharist if I view a recipient as unworthy. I realize that, truly, it is not my place to judge. The absence of “fraternal communion” to which Saint Pope John Paul II refers prevents others from becoming part of the Body of Christ. As a result, I can no longer sense a community of faith and a shared belief when I enter a church.

Today, I hate to admit, the only community I experience and trust includes my family. Yet, I long for a wider connection with my faith community. With rising divisions in our world, our nation, our communities, including our churches, we have neglected and forgotten what “community” looks like. With the pandemic, we witnessed an abundance of care for others and a concern for the common good. As time passed, though, our communities turned inward, becoming ever more individualistic and fearful. Three years later, an indifference has set in, infecting our relationships. It’s more important to be right than to learn from one another. In the uncertainty of what is real and truthful, we cling to our opposing sides. It makes it still harder to receive Eucharist among such divisions, stemming from our politics that have infected our shared faith. As I attempt to put it into words, I see a direct connection with sharing the Eucharist and my relationships with others in my faith community.

I have found that, instead of proclaiming the hope and life in the resurrected Christ, we have allowed our fears of all the evil in the world to dictate our prayers and actions. As a central part of our liturgy and life, the gifts of both the Word of God and the Eucharist have the power to feed our souls and transform our hearts. Our faith communities can help us to heal and become whole.

In 2022, Pope Francis gave a homily at the conclusion of a National Eucharistic Congress in Matera, Italy. He implored that we dream of a Eucharistic Church where we return to Jesus. This Eucharistic Church would include “men and women who break like bread for all those who chew on loneliness and poverty, for those who hunger for tenderness and compassion, for those whose lives are crumbling because the leaven of hope is lacking. A Church that kneels before the Eucharist and worships with awe the Lord present in the bread; but that also knows how to bend with compassion and tenderness before the wounds of those who suffer, lifting up the poor, wiping away the tears of those who suffer, making herself the bread of hope and joy for all. Because there is no true Eucharistic worship without compassion for the many “Lazaruses” who even today walk beside us. [See Luke 16:19-31.] There are so many of them!” 

Living as a Eucharistic Church means that we engage in our faith communities and the world in such a way as to witness Jesus’ love and mercy. We aspire to be Christ for others. It means that, despite the realities that cause consternation and anxiety, we have to look through the lens of our faith. As a community of faith, a Eucharistic Church takes care of one another and reaches out to those who do not feel welcome but long to encounter Christ. The Eucharist instills in us freedom along with a spirit of fraternity. 

The Breaking of the Bread

On the Road to Emmaus, three days after Jesus was crucified, two disciples encounter Christ in an unexpected way.

Now on that same day two of them [disciples of Jesus] were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened [Jesus’ arrest, suffering and crucifixion]. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad … Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures… When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. … [T]hey told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Read the story of The Road to Emmaus in its entirety: Luke 24: 13-35) 

These two disciples lived an experience of a Eucharistic Church with Jesus that day. Instead of continuing to walk away from Jerusalem, they risked their safety in order to walk back in the dark of night to share this pivotal encounter with the other disciples. They were unable to keep it to themselves!

Let’s imagine our own walk on the Road to Emmaus, joined by the resurrected Jesus where our hearts burned in his presence as he shared the revelations of scripture. I ask myself: Would I have recognized him? I’d like to think that I’d know it was Jesus walking beside me on the road. When he spoke, I would hope I’d hear my teacher’s voice. Maybe it was the heartbreak and disappointment of his death on a cross that numbed these two disciples to Jesus’ nearness. Maybe their fear clouded their sight. Maybe God prevented it at first. And yet, their hearts burned when he spoke of the scriptures, interpreting the holy text in such a way as to reveal the truth of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. Jesus, the Paschal Mystery!

Something significant happened to Jesus’ disciples. They moved from a paralyzing fear to the courageous speech about the truth in Christ. Something pulled them out of their despair in the Upper Room, where the Last Supper was celebrated, to the world outside where they proclaimed the Gospel with boldness. It happened to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Even though they deserted their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, wrapped up in their despair at Jesus’ death, the resurrected Jesus met them along the road. There, they were transformed in the revelation of Scripture and in the breaking of the bread, the first Eucharist shared with the resurrected Christ. This spirit of confidence and fearlessness, healing and wholeness, awaits us, too. On our own roads to Emmaus we can be assured that Christ will appear.

St. John Paul II wrote an encyclical in 2003 concerning the Eucharist. In it, he wished to “rekindle the Eucharistic amazement” among the faithful. Each time we celebrate this sacrament, we enter into the paschal mystery: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We partake in the “breaking of the bread” practiced by early Christians in the first century. “Spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. From the Upper Room, the first Eucharistic meal took place and we now can celebrate our redemption through Jesus’ death and resurrection each time we celebrate Eucharist.” As a community of the faithful, as a Church begun by Christ, do we still feel this “Eucharistic amazement”?

Indeed, we believe that this “Eucharistic amazement” burns within us each and every day. If we would only open our hearts to this essence of Catholic wonder at the root of our identity in our communities of faith. May we all find ways to embrace and participate in our faith communities, finding new ways to encounter the people in front and behind us as we walk together on our road to Emmaus.

Join me for my next blog, “Emmaus: Towards a Real Presence Part II,” where I will look at our journey along the road, in the face of the violence that we are confronted with every day and our response as transformed believers. 

Call to Action: In the comments below, describe what this blog makes you think about regarding your community of faith. Also, what is significant to you when you hear the story of the Road to Emmaus?

Song for Contemplation: “Will We Ever Rise?” by The Brilliance. I recently discovered this talented group. Their lyrics are meaningful and music is interesting and beautiful.