I am stationed for the moment in Carlow where there is no public Mass on a Sunday and so no opportunity to preach. So the homily below has not actually been delivered and is a draft!
How often have you gone for a long walk? How often during times of stress will someone go for a walk
to clear one’s head, get away from a place of stress and conflict? My late mother was forever
threatening to leave us but she didn’t.
I would go for long walks as a teenager to clear my head. Sometimes the only thing you can do is
walk away if only for a time.
Here are two disciples walking away from the stress and danger of
Jerusalem. They are escaping,
getting away, perhaps even giving up.
Jerusalem is set on seven little hills well above sea level so these two
disciples are not only leaving Jerusalem they are also going downhill. They are leaving Israel’s sacred city
and walking away from all their hopes, dreams and beliefs.
It is while they are going downhill that the Lord appears and walks
besides them. He opens up the
conversation and draws out their feelings of disappointment and fear. They had expected so much of
Jesus. They had looked forward to
a free and holy Jewish Kingdom.
They felt betrayed not only by their religious leaders but also by their
own friends. Perhaps they also
felt betrayed by the Lord. They
could not stomach the stories of a risen Jesus that the women told. Remember that women were not considered
reliable witnesses! It was all too
much for them so they are walking away.
It is at this point that the Lord lays into them. Fools! They had been with Him for so long and still understood so
little. He explains the scriptures
for them to the point that their hearts burn with His Light and the recognition
of the Truth. Still when they
reach Emmaus they have to insist on His staying with them. It is not until He has taken the bread,
blessed it and broken it that they recognise Him. As soon as they do He disappears.
It is then that they rejoin the believers in Jerusalem, their fears
dispelled, their faith renewed.
They walk back up the road to Jerusalem, back to the danger and fear but
full of joy and hope. Jesus is
risen and the world is changed, changed utterly. The greatest beauty of all has come into being.
Often we are battered and bruised by the world we live in, the
people who surround us. Our faith
in Christ and His Church can be shaken or even snuffed out by scandals and
abuses. It can seem easier to walk
away and start afresh somewhere else.
It can seem easier to throw in the towel and abandon the Lord. We can forget the wonders that have been
done for us, the blessings we have received. It is all too true that eaten bread is soon forgotten.
Yet the Lord never abandons us. He walks with us and speaks to us if only we would
listen. Hearing is one thing but
really listening is another.
Paying attention to what the Lord is saying takes time and effort for as
Elijah discovered the Lord is often found in the gentlest of voices.
When we give time to the Lord to listen to His voice in the
Scriptures, in the Teaching of the Church and in the depths of our hearts we
discover the power of His word to transform us. He wants us to know that everything is ok. There’s nothing that can happen that we
cannot overcome with His help.
There is nothing we ought to fear except sin, that is, doing the things
that separate us from Him. To walk
away from Him and His Church is to abandon all hope for our only hope is in Him
and the Church He has founded.
There is no other way to Heaven but in and through Him.
The art of being a Christian lies in learning how to listen to the
Lord and to recognise the sound of His voice calling us to follow in His
footsteps. It means giving time
each day to prayer, to listening to His word in the Bible, to pouring out our
hears before Him. It also means
giving time regularly to learning about our Faith and what it demands of
us. It means examining our
conscience and bringing our sins to the Lord in the Sacrament of
Confession. Paying this
attention to the Lord leads us over time to become better persons, more
faithful to the Lord and to the ones we love. It leads us to have hearts and minds ever more attentive to
His voice so that we co-operate more readily with His grace and grow in
holiness. We become founts of
grace for others. We can walk with
others who are in despair and bring them to peace, hope and joy in the Lord.
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