A Reflection on Luke 24:13-35 Both from a literary and a religious point of view, the story of the appearance of the risen Lord to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is certainly one of the most beautiful passages in the Gospels. This story can only be found in the Luke. Where was Emmaus? We do not know where it was: it might have been a very insignificant place close to Jerusalem. And what were the two disciples doing in Emmaus on that first day of the week (Sunday, not Monday)? We can never imagine the psychological distress that Jesus’ followers had to go through after his death. They had followed him, had heard his preaching, had witnessed a few of his miracles, etc. Could he be the Messiah that the Israelites had been waiting for all this time, to free them from the Romans? Whatever hopes they might have had, all that came to a disappointing halt on that dreadful Friday: the Master had been crucified, and there was no meaning in anything anymore. So the two disciples were walking, perhaps aimlessly, to Emmaus. They just wanted to get away from that unbearable situation in Jerusalem they had witnessed two days earlier… According to the Protestant minister Frederick Buchner in his The Magnificent Defeat, WE ALL have been to Emmaus: “Emmaus can be a trip to the movies… [it] may be buying a new suit or a new car or smoking more cigarettes than you really want, or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred…[It is] the place that we go to in order to escape—a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, ‘Let the whole damned thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.’ ” Be careful! On the road to our different “Emmauses,” the risen Lord will encounter us in ways that we least expect, and in the very ordinary moments of our lives—especially when we try to escape from our current reality that had become unbearable. The Emmaus story also challenges us to open our hearts to others. After the two disciples opened their hearts to welcome the stranger, they were able to recognize the risen Lord in the stranger. In an earlier story in Luke’s Gospel about the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31), had the rich man opened his eyes and his heart to welcome the stranger Lazarus, perhaps he would have recognized the Lord in his poor brother. By opening their hearts to the stranger, the two disciples were able to proclaim: “Were not our hearts burning within us?” And that leaves us with this reflection: by the breaking of bread in the Eucharist and the breaking of God’s word through sacred scriptures, how can our hearts NOT burn with love? .