Unexpectedly, I find myself in Virginia as the Easter season begins. My son required an urgent tonsillectomy, and that put me in the car driving south just as the church celebrated the resurrection. When I left Connecticut, it was dark and damp and cloudy. It felt like I hadn’t seen the sun in months, and this year there wasn’t even bright snow blanketing the world. Winter was just mud. As I put miles behind me, the world brightened. The sun shone. The trees turned green. Flowers dotted the landscape. I arrived in Virginia on Easter Monday, and the whole world was ablaze with the good news. It was as if someone had flipped a switch, and Lent was finally over. I got out of the car, stretched my arms high overhead, and bathed my face in warmth and light.
It’s glorious when the natural world concurs with the liturgical calendar. How much easier is it for our spirits to feel in sync with the church when the world around us also aligns with the liturgy? There is light here in Virginia. Of course, it is also Easter in the Northeast. We just have to work a bit harder to believe it up there. Spring was so obvious to me this year because I drove into it. Instead of watching it unfold little by little, while tender shoots sprung from the ground and tiny leaves began to fill out the trees, I was treated to a rapid progression as I drove south — a seven-hour change of seasons, if you will.
I found myself pondering the road to Emmaus the day after Nick’s surgery. Jesus fell into step with people who had been waiting and watching for the messiah, and they didn’t even recognize that he was with them. The promise of new life — hope himself — was sauntering alongside them and they missed the signs at first. Here, where spring unfurled itself in the waning days of Lent, did you notice? More importantly, did you see what happened when the candles were lit and heat and light filled the church at Easter? Was the change palpable and real, and do you know that it is Easter still? Have you let God into your heart, and allowed him to light it on fire? Will you stoke and sustain the fire and light of Easter within you for more than just a moment or a day?
Fall into step with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and he’ll show you how.
First, he shares Scripture. The Bible will ignite your hearts, but you need to know it. St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” For us to know Christ, to love him, to become like him, we have to treasure Scripture. If we pay attention to what the prophets foretold about him and he fulfilled, if we hear the good news of the Gospels, if we read the letters of the apostles with our hearts, we will readily recognize Christ. We will see the hope of springtime in the pages, no matter the season. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Is 40:8).
Next, allow Jesus into the conversation. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus is subtle, nuanced and gentle when he breaks into the conversation. This must have required courage and empathy. We have to be willing to meet people where they are. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable with them, surrendering our comfort in order to move toward them. We have to engage, hold space for them and listen more than we talk. Evangelization — of ourselves and others — is more accompaniment than preaching and teaching.
We have to acknowledge that people are hurt. They walk away from the new Jerusalem, disappointed and dejected. The two disciples were leaving because they thought the crucifixion meant that Jesus wasn’t the promised messiah. He didn’t meet their notions of what the messiah would look like; he wasn’t conqueror and king in a worldly sense. We, too, are tempted to lose faith when our prayers aren’t answered the way we desire them to be. We don’t get the job. We don’t get the baby. We don’t see our loved ones healed. God doesn’t act according to our narrative, so we start to doubt that he’s God at all.
We have to ask the people we accompany, perhaps even ask ourselves: Why are they leaving, where are they going, what do they hope to find there? That’s the path to Jesus. When we know what we are truly seeking, and we circle back to scripture, we find ourselves wondering and answering, with St. Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Finally, Jesus makes himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. This is also how he makes himself known to us. Jesus is present. His light and his heat are not extinguished. He desires to heal, renew, and unify the church and the world. It is Easter. It is still Easter. Grab the graces of this season; hold them as you would a bouquet of springtime daffodils. Feel the heat and the light, and let your heart be ablaze.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
