April 24, 2022 - "Luke 24"

During the fifty days of the Easter Season I enjoy reading Luke 24 where Luke discusses the Resurrection, the Appearance at Emmaus, the Appearance at Jerusalem, and the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven.  I particularly like to read over the account of the Appearance at Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35).  I am particularly struck with verses 30 and 35, which I will repeat here: “And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them” (Luke 24:30). “Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35).  To follow up on what I am writing in this column please refer to The Gospel of Luke by Father Pablo T. Gadenz in the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture series.
 
In the account of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus took the five loaves that had been presented to them, said a blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples.  Whereas the feeding of the five thousand looks ahead to the Institution of the Eucharist, this account in the Appearance at Emmaus looks back to it, as four similar actions also happened there: “He took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke It and gave it to them” (Luke 22:19).
 
Before this time the eyes of these two disciples were prevented from recognizing him but now their eyes were opened.  Saint Leo the Great, a fifth century Doctor of the Church remarks on this passage in this way: “[T]he eyes of the two were opened far more happily when the glorification of their own nature was revealed to them, than the eyes of those first parents of our race on whom the confusion of their own transgression was inflicted.”
 
After the disciples recognized him in the breaking of the bread, Jesus vanished from their sight.  This indicates that after the resurrection of Jesus, his body has not returned to a normal or earthly existence.  Instead his body has been transformed in a glorified body whose properties include the ability to be present how and where he wills.  Furthermore after his ascension, Jesus will vanish from the earthly sight of his disciples.  But he will stay with them particularly “in the breaking of the bread,” the Holy Eucharist.  This is where disciples can recognize him, even today.
 
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1346-47) explains that the Emmaus pattern of opening the Scriptures followed by the breaking of bread is repeated in every Mass, with the Liturgy of the Eucharist leading to the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  Let me finish this column with Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks on this Emmaus pattern:

Luke’s account of the disciples on the way to Emmaus enables us to reflect further on this link between the hearing of the word and the breaking of bread. . . . The presence of Jesus with his words and then with his act of breaking bread, made it possible for the disciples to recognize him. . . . From these accounts it is clear that Scripture itself points us toward an appreciation of its own unbreakable bond with the Eucharist. . . . Word and Eucharist are so deeply bound together that we cannot understand one without the other; the word of God sacramentally takes on flesh in the event of Eucharist.  The Eucharist opens us to an understanding of Scripture, just as Scripture for its part illuminates and explains the mystery of the Eucharist. (Verbum Domini 54-55).
 
Until next week,
Fr. John