3rd SUNDAY

of

Acts 2: 14:22-33
I Pet. 1: 17-21
Lk:24:13-35 Cycle A

30 April 2017
INTRODUCTION:
Our Gospel this Sunday
is about Jesus and the
two disciples on the
road to Emmaus.
INTRODUCTION:
Why does the Church
keep going back to this
story after 2000 years?

This event happened on the very same

day of the Resurrection -- Sunday,
the first day of the week when God
re-created the whole creation again.
1 Two disciples were
going to Emmaus away
from Jerusalem.

Everything in Lukes
Gospel gravitate
around Jerusalem.
1
According to scholars,
Emmaus was a Roman
garrison, so a rival center
of worldly power of arms
and guns. Real power is
the power of
self-forgetting love.
1

It is clear that the two

disciples were going the
wrong way. Even if they are
going the wrong way, Jesus
joins them along the way.
1 The whole of the Bible is not man
searching for God but God
searching for man, even when we
are going the wrong way.
1
The disciples did not
recognize him because they
were walking the wrong way.
The way we speak and act has
a lot to do with the way we
live. "What are you
discussing along the way?"
asked Jesus.
2 One of them, Cleopas, answered him:
"About Jesus of Nazareth who was a great
prophet The chief priests and our leaders
handed him over to be sentenced to death
and had him crucified. Our own hope had
been that he would be the one to set Israel free.
And this is not all: some women from
our group have astounded us ... to tell us
they had seen a vision of angels who
declared he was alive."
2
The disciples recounted
what they knew about Jesus.
They got all the details and
had all the facts and data
about Jesus. But they don't
get the pattern that brings
all of the data together and
makes them one coherent
whole.
2
These disciples are like those
who hear a joke but dont get
it and thus dont laugh or
like one who reads a novel
and is lost in the many
characters and misses the
point of the novel.
2

That is why Jesus calls them

"How foolish and so slow to
believe the full message of
the prophets. Was it not
ordained that the Christ
should suffer and so enter
into his glory?"
2 This is the key that
makes Jesus
understandable.
The path of God is the
path of suffering love.
2
There is no love
without sacrifice.

The only one thing that

finally teaches one in life
is suffering.
3
Now Jesus gives a
hermeneutical
interpretation of the
pattern from his own
life which now reveals
the whole of the Old
Testament.
3
We do not fully know the
prophets, even the
Genesis or Exodus,
Moses and David until
we see these under the
lens of Christ.
3
At this point the hearts of
these disciples were burning.
"While he was with them at
table for supper, he took the
bread; said the blessing;
then he broke it and handed
it to them."
3
Jesus does the great
Eucharistic act which is
the sacramental
presentation of the
pattern of suffering love.
3
At this point, their eyes were opened.

They begin to see him as he

interprets the Scriptures to
them but they fully see his
pattern of suffering love at
Mass.
3

At both parts of the Mass

-- the Liturgy of the Word
and the Eucharist --
Jesus explains and
reaches out!
 CONCLUSION:
The road to Emmaus is
our own story too!

Despite our walking away from the right

path and wallowing in our inconsistencies,
the disciples of Emmaus returned to
Jerusalem and converted themselves to
renew and pursue the path of suffering
love.
+ART
 CONCLUSION:

That is why the

Mass is the source
and summit of
Christian life!
+ART