Fr. Michael Williams

Throughout life we can have many hopes. We can hope for success and happiness for family, friends and ourselves. Sometimes these hopes are not realised. Sometimes we place our hope in the wrong things. Millions of people hope to win the lottery. People can hope that their football team does well. These kind of hopes are fairly superficial. The most important hope to have is to hope for salvation. In other words to hope that God’s power will save us.

That had been the hope of Jesus’ disciples. The two disciples of Jesus who were walking away from Jerusalem- the holy city, had hoped that Jesus would save them. They said to the Lord whom they did not recognise, “Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free”. But they believed that hope was ended when Jesus was crucified. They had placed all their hope in Christ and it appeared to them misplaced. Whenever we hope for something and it does not work out as we hoped it can depress us.

As the two disciples made their way to Emmaus they were dejected and disheartened. The scriptures tells us that “their faces [were] downcast”. The reason they were downcast was because they believed Jesus’ death on the cross was the end of him. All their hope now seems to be gone.

Although they do not recognise him, Jesus walks with these two dispirited disciples. On the way he reveals to them that the scandal of the cross is actually the road to glory: “Was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory?” It is a difficult lesson for those two disciples, and for us, to understand. Jesus tells the two disciples, “You foolish men! So slow to believe”. We too can be slow to believe in a world weighed down by suffering. Yet the cross of Christ is something we are all called to share in if we want to share in the Lord’s resurrection- eternal life. Pope John Paul II said, “Each person is called to share in that suffering through which the Redemption was accomplished” (SD19). As John Paul serenely approached death, he was suffering certainly, but he knew he was sharing in the passion of the Lord, so that he could then enter into the Lord’s glory. We can safely say John Paul practised what he preached.

We should never forget that the cross of Christ only makes sense in the glorious light of the resurrection. After explaining the necessity of the cross, the Risen Lord then reveals himself to the two depressed disciples “at the breaking of bread”. He shows them that he has conquered sin and death once and for all. The Lord Jesus, “took the bread and said the blessing, then he broke it and handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognised him”.

The Risen Lord accompanies us as we walk through life, sometimes our “faces [may be] downcast”. But the Lord seeks to raise our hearts and minds to his truth by walking with us. And if we allow him to walk with us, and invite him into our hearts and homes, he will change the direction we are travelling in- just as he did with his two depressed disciples. They did an about turn and headed back to Jerusalem full of joy, their hope restored.

If we allow Jesus to walk with us he will reveal to us the truth about the cross and resurrection. He respects our freedom and will never force himself on us, unlike the evil one who always seeks to force himself on us. Jesus walks with us, so as to enable us to walk with him. And the place we are journeying to is the New Jerusalem, the Father’s house, where “there will be no more death, and no more mourning and sadness. The world of the past has gone”.

Pope John Paul allowed the Lord to accompany him on his journey through life. John Paul came to understand the power of Christ’s cross eloquently. John Paul recognised the Lord in the breaking of bread, that is the Mass, throughout his life. The Lord then took him to the heavenly Jerusalem.

John Paul, like the two disciples in the gospel, walked with the Lord and was led deeper and deeper into the mystery of Christ’s suffering and resurrection. As disciples of the Lord let us follow his example.