The Gospel today is the telling of the story of the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) in which two disciples are travelling along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus after the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, and they encounter the Risen Lord walking with them though they do not recognize him. Upon reaching Emmaus, the two invite the stranger to have dinner with them and spend the night before continuing his journey. The story concludes by saying: “While he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” They recognized Jesus in the action of the “breaking of the bread.” Immediately, the despair of the two disciples turned to joy; their desperation turned to elation and they rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples of their encounter with the Risen Lord.
It is likely that we can identify with these two disciples who were on the road to Emmaus. We have all experienced times of despair and disappointment. We’ve had dreams dashed and felt overwhelming losses. Perhaps these times have weakened our faith or left us questioning God’s plan for us. Just like the two disciples we hear about today, we need something to bring us out of our gloom at times. We need to have our outlook lifted and our faith reignited. We need God.
That has perhaps been one of the hardest aspects of the “social distancing” that we have lived through for the past several weeks. At the very time when we have most needed to be at Mass, to hear God’s Word, to pray and sing and breathe as one body of believers, to experience the presence of Christ in the “breaking of the bread” and to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, we have been unable to do so, exercising caution to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. Some parishes, like our own, have tried to bridge the gap by providing Mass on television or over the internet, but there has been something – or rather someone - sadly absent. I have heard the cries and seen the tears of parishioners as they have expressed their profound sorrow at not being able to receive the Lord sacramentally in the Holy Eucharist during this time of pandemic. I suspect that their feelings are much like those of the two disciples in today’s Gospel as they walked along the road filled with sorrow and dejection over the death of Jesus who was now absent from their lives – or so they thought.
The day will come when the doors of our churches will once again be open to believers. And we will gather together in prayer, recognizing that even in our darkest hour, God was with us. We, too, will recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. We will receive him in the Holy Eucharist, and there will be tears shed. These will not be tears of sorrow, but rather, tears of joy.