Seeing with Burning Hearts
“And it happened that, 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, but he vanished from their sight.”Luke 24:30-31
While on the road to Emmaus, the two disciples were walking, debating all that had been taking place about Jesus. A man approached them and they explained to him all that had took place. The man, who is really Jesus, was unrecognizable to the disciples. This was so maybe because they did not see with the eyes of faith. They were perhaps discussing whether the things that had happened could possibly be true and if so, what it all meant. Jesus said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke." Their hearts were not moved to believe — yet. After saying this, Jesus began to explain all that the prophets had prophesied about Him. In the midst of our unbelief and slowness of heart, Jesus accompanies us and teaches us.
As they approached Emmaus, they asked Jesus to stay with them. Jesus agreed and followed them to their home. "Stay with us." The disciples asked, and Jesus willingly complied. The disciples, after walking with Jesus and listening to Him were intrigued and wanted to listen more to this man (they did not know he was Jesus yet). When they had arrived home, they had dinner, and it was then that the disciples recognized Jesus. It was the breaking of the bread — the re-presentation of the events of the Last Supper that opened the eyes of the disciples and removed the obstacles that slowed their hearts. It is the Eucharist that enables us to see Christ. It is His Body and Blood that moves our hearts from unbelief to belief. It is the great sacrificial love behind the breaking of the bread that gives us the hope of eternal life. The road to Emmaus is the road to faith.
Just as with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, there will be times when we question, debate, and discuss on our road to faith, and fortunately Jesus will be present there to lead, guide, and teach. This road and journey is one of encounter — encountering one another, encountering ourselves, and encountering God. In encountering one another we share all that we have learned and have come to believe. In encountering ourselves we come to learn our own strengths and weaknesses, as well as confront the limitations and stumbling blocks that hold us back. In encountering God, we bring everything to Him, asking Him to help us make meaning of all that we have experienced - the joys and the sorrows, the confusions and the doubts, the affirmations and the revelations, the consolations and the desolations, the acceptances and the rejections, the guilt and the remorse, the desires and the shames, the gains and the losses, and the love and the sacrifices — and how to use them in the mission He has for us. When we are able to encounter the Father is such a way, like the disciples, our hearts will feel as if they were burning within us.
This burning is the recognition of the presence of God, the awareness of the loving gaze with which He looks at us. Our hearts burn within us because it recognizes the heart of Jesus, which is pierced and beats for love of us. Our hearts burn within us because we have come to experience the heart of Our Lady, whose heart is one with Her Son's, and whose heart was pierced by a sword "so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Lk. 2:35). Our hearts finally burn within us because we come to know, believe, and accept that the heart which beats within us is not our own, but rather belongs to Christ, whose heart beats and bleeds only for His people.
"Stay with me, Lord. Make my heart like Yours, pierced and bleeding, so that it can burn strongly and continually with pure love for You and Your people."
