Tuesday in the Second Week of Easter, April 14, 2026

John 3, 7-15

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “You must be born from above.  The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can this happen?” Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

“You must be born from above.”  The Lord Jesus, the Son of God who was made man into to save the world from sin, is speaking to Nicodemus, a leading Pharisee, who wonders if Jesus is the Messiah.  That is, he wonders if Jesus is the one who will lead Israel against the Romans and reestablish the Kingdom of Israel.  The Lord is leading him past his very worldly understanding of the Messiah to the true, spiritual understanding.  Thus, he speaks of being reborn of water and Spirit, and the need for this in order to see the Kingdom of God.  This kingdom will not be the earthly kingdom Nicodemus and the Pharisees expect to see with their eyes but a kingdom of the spirit: the Lord’s Mystical Body.

Nicodemus listens intently but it is hard for him to shift his thinking: “How can this happen?”  The Greek text has, “How can this be?”  The distinction is that the Kingdom of God does not “happen” so much as it simply “is”.  Or, perhaps, Nicodemus as he strains to understand, is asking, “How can I accept this?”  “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?”  The Lord is not mocking or rebuking the Pharisee, but telling him that he in fact does possess the tools he need in order to understand the Lord’s teaching.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.”  The Lord here is speaking of the other Pharisees, those who will not believe and do not seek understanding.  He is also chiding Nicodemus to rethink all that he knows of the Scriptures.  Jesus will do much the same thing with the Apostles after his Resurrection: “Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures” (Luke 24, 45).  

“If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”  “You” here is in the plural, according to the Greek text, so the Lord is not asking this of Nicodemus but  the Pharisees in general and all of us.  He asks if he teaches about spiritual realities using earthly figures, such as birth, water, and the wind, and we do not believe, how will we believe if he speaks to us of spiritual realities without using earthly figures?  Jesus speaks in this way to make it clear, again, that he is speaking of the spiritual realm when he speaks of the Kingdom of God.  After three years of teaching this, one would think that at least his disciples would get it, but some of them do not, even up to the time of the Ascension: “Lord, will you at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?” (Acts 1, 6).  

“No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.”  The Lord is confirms to Nicodemus that he is indeed the Messiah, the Savior, for the Son of Man, he says, has come down from heaven.  This also indicates that the Son of Man is not merely a man chosen by God, but one whose proper home is in heaven.  He is divine.  “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”  The Greek word translated here as “lifted” can also mean “exalted” and so we look at its context to understand which is meant: Moses put the bronze serpent on a pole that was raised so those afflicted by the bite of the seraph serpent might look upon it and recover.  Therefore, Jesus is saying that he will be raised up onto a pole or something similar so that people may look upon him and be cured of some condition.  Since the result of the cure will be “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”, we can understand looking upon him lifted up will cure them of their sins which prevent them from entering eternal life.  Jesus means that he will be “lifted up”, then, and in a specific way.

We should often look upon a crucifix throughout the say in order to draw our minds back to our Lord so that we might do all things to please him who suffered for us.

Monday in the Second Week of Easter, April 14, 2026

John 3, 1-8

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

“A Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.”  From the evidence of the Gospels. Many if not most of the Pharisees opposed Jesus, seeing his rejection of their interpretation of the Scriptures as a rejection of Judaism.  But exceptions such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea did exist.  These sought to understand the Lord by asking him honest questions.  They had to be careful though lest they come under suspicion from the others of being his followers.  

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.”  Nicodemus, instead of jumping to false conclusions, carefully considered the facts about the Lord: he had seen with his own eyes the miracles Jesus had performed and drawn the correct conclusion that these cures could only have been accomplished through the power of God.  Since this was so, who was this Jesus?  Who did he claim to be?  Was he the Messiah?  The discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus that follows, as reported by St. John, comes across as fragmentary or as highlights, yet in John’s report we hear the Lord teaching clearly about the Holy Spirit as a divine Person, revealing this to one who was willing to learn.  The questions Nicodemus asks may sound rather simple, almost childish, but he follows the Greek system of dialogue as practiced by Socrates and Plato, establishing basic principles and then building upon them. 

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”  Nicodemus opened with an admission that he believed Jesus to be a teacher who had come from God.  Jesus answers his unspoken question as to whether he is the Messiah who is come to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth and expelling the Romans.  The Kingdom of God, he says, is not what so many seem to think.  It can indeed be seen, but not with the eyes.  It is not a physical place.  It is invisible and can only be seen through grace.  This grace comes upon those who are “born from above”, transformed by grace.

“How can a man once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?”  The Pharisee’s question shows understanding.  He grants the Lord’s premise of a man being born again and asks how this can be.  By contrast, another Pharisee would have denied that this could happen, have hurled insults at Jesus, and stormed off.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”  Jesus explains what he means by being born again: he confirms that it is not a physical rebirth but a spiritual regeneration through “water and Spirit”.  John shows, throughout his Gospel, what the Lord means by “water” — grace and life, that is, a sharing in the life of God.

“The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  The Lord says this to make clear to Nicodemus the distinction between a human born of the Spirit and one born only of the flesh, and in this way helps him to understand the Holy Spirit.  He emphasizes the invisibility of the Spirit.  To us today, they seems very straightforward, but the Pharisees and the people of the time had a  materialist idea of God, the angels, and heaven.  In speaking like this, Jesus is weaning Nicodemus off the Messiah as a military leader.

Sometimes we also reduce God to a material being on our minds, despite our knowing that he is spirit.  He is transcendent, far beyond what we can conceive.  He is Love that overwhelms and transforms and never ceases.  He cannot be contained in a name, for “God” is a sort of title rather than an actual name.  He is infinite and ever present in the hearts of those who love him.  Knowing him better enables us to love him more and thus to believe in him with greater faith — faith that will be turned into knowledge when we behold him in his Kingdom.

Sunday within the Octave of Easter, April 13, 2026

John 20, 19–31

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

St. Thomas passionately believed in Jesus.  When the Lord turned to go back to Judea, where the had recently tried to kill him, he counseled the other Apostles, who were resisting, “Let us go with him that we might die with him” (John 11, 16).  He was not speaking on mere impulse but from his great conviction that Jesus was the Lord.  All the more crushing for him, therefore, was the Lord’s crucifixion and Death.  The immensity of his grief may have caused him to avoid the company of the Apostles that Easter Sunday evening when the Lord appeared in the house where he had eaten the Last Supper with them, and where they had taken refuge from the Jews.  His refusal to accept the claims that the Lord was risen also come from his devastation.  That is why he goes so far as to say, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  That is, it would not be enough for him merely to see Jesus — he must touch his wounds.

Because Thomas’s doubt comes not from malice, as in the case of the Pharisees,  but from his grief, the Lord appears to him and bids him believe.  And Thomas does: “My Lord and my God!”  According to both tradition in the West and the testimony of the Christians in India, Thomas made his way through eastern lands, eventually arriving in India, where he preached the Gospel and founded the Church there.  Indeed, the Indians preserve a tradition according to which Thomas even visited China.  This would make him the most traveled of the Apostles, a proof of his burning belief in the Lord Jesus.

We can grow in our faith in Jesus by persisting in our belief in him through the good and hard times in our lives.  Regular reading of the Scriptures, especially the Gospels, helps, and meditation through the rosary is of great profit as well.  We help ourselves in these ways and God grants us grace too.  Most of all we should pray, and best of all we should pray before the Blessed Sacrament where, with our hearts, we can touch the wounds of Jesus.

Saturday within the Octave of Easter, April 11, 2026

Mark 16, 9–15

When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either. But later, as the Eleven were at table, Jesus appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

St. Mark’s Gospel follows Jesus breathlessly through the first events at the beginning of his ministry and the last few months of his life on earth, but his account of the Resurrection disappoints.  In fact, two accounts of the visit of the Resurrection are given.  The first, Mark 16, 1-8, ends as though a fragment with the women thoroughly frightened by the appearance of the angel st the tomb.  The second, Mark 16, 9-20, seems not to be by Mark but by another another.  Its legitimacy in the Gospel, however, is shown by the numerous early Greek texts of the Gospel which include it.  It is also found in all the early pre-Vulgate texts excepting one, and Jerome included it in the Vulgate.  The Catholic Church guarantees that it is divinely inspired through its making the Vulgate its official Bible at the Council of Trent.

“When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.”  The four Gospels, written at different times in different places for diverse audiences all remarkably tell us that the Lord appeared first to Mary Magdalene.  We might expect one or another of them to simply not mention her or the other women but to go right from the angel rolling back the stone to the appearance of the Lord to the Apostles.  But each Evangelist thought it essential to speak of Mary.  John even goes into considerable detail in his description of the Lord’s appearance to her.  

“She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.”. This detail about their “mourning and weeping” only appears in this Gospel.  Otherwise, we get a picture of the Apostles sitting around in the dark, their minds on how to hide from the Jews who might be looking for them.  “When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.”  Grief has a way of reinforcing itself, and perhaps this is happening here: their grief had so overcome them that they could not believe that the Lord was alive.  This verse would seem to contradict what is said in the Gospel of John about Peter and John running to the tomb after Mary Magdalene delivered her message, but the verse may be a general summary of the condition of the Apostles without mentioning that Peter and John had seen the empty tomb and come back without seeing Jesus. “After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either.”  This verse greatly condenses the story from Luke of the two disciples who met Jesus on their way to Emmaus.  However, “but they did not believe them either” seems to contradict Luke’s description of the Apostles already convinced of the Lord’s rising.  The problem arises from the fact that only a very condensed version of the encounter is related.  It could be that some of the Apostles believed and others did not with the result that we are told “his companions . . . did not believe.”  Similarly, Jesus appeared “as the Eleven were at table”: we know from the Gospel of John that Thomas was not present for the Lord’s first appearance to the Apostles on Easter Sunday evening.  The author is simply making a generalization, as when we might say, “The eyes of the world are on this”, when we might mean tens of thousands or a million people and not everyone on the earth at the time.

“Jesus appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.’ ”  This verse is the reason the unbelief was emphasized in this ending to the Gospel: these disheartened, disbelieving men must have seen something in order for them to indeed go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel.  These broken-hearted men were not easy to convince.  Mere witnesses who had seen the Lord, and whom they knew and trusted, could not convince them.  Only the Lord himself could have convinced them that he was alive.  And if they were convinced, despite everything, it follows that we must be convinced too.  John makes this same point in his Gospel with his report on the Lord’s appearance to Thomas, who had doubted even when the other Apostles had seen him.

We should mourn and weep not over the loss of Jesus but over our own possible loss of eternal life due to our sins, but let our grief be tempered by the joy of the Resurrection, for the Lord Jesus has opened heaven for us.

Friday in the Octave of Easter, April 10, 2026

John 21, 1–14

Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We also will come with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” They answered him, “No.” So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from shore, only about a hundred yards, dragging the net with the fish. When they climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.

“Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.”  

After Herod Antipas founded the City of Tiberias, named after the Roman Emperor, in 20 A.D., the Sea of Galilee came to be called “the Sea of Tiberias”.  Luke calls the sea “the Lake of Gennesaret” (Luke 5, 1), a much older name which his readers might have been more familiar with.  St. John must have called it “the Sea of Tiberias” for the same reason.  Perhaps that was what the Jewish Christians of Judea, for whom he was writing his Gospel, called it.  It might also have come from an editorial decision by an early copyist who meant his copy of the Gospel for Gentile Christians.  “Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples.”  One of these unnamed disciples may have been Matthew, who hailed from the area, and also Philip, who is associated with Nathanael (Bartholomew).  The fact that John names five disciples but leaves two others unnamed shows the concern for accuracy in his Gospel.  He does not simply say, “Peter and some other disciples” or only name the five he remembers and ignore the ones he does not.  He names the five he remembers and points out that there two others whose names he cannot recall.  “Didymus”.  The name “Thomas” comes from the Hebrew word for “twin”, which in Greek is the word “Didymos”, anglicized to “Didymus”.  This may indicate that he had a twin brother.

“I am going fishing.”  Not for sport but in order to have something to eat.  They did not preaching during the period between the Resurrection of Jesus and the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and so there were no donations for food as formerly.

“Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.”  The time seems to have been around sunrise, so they may not have recognized him because of distance and lingering darkness.  They could have recognized him from his voice, but they might not have since they were not expecting him.  “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.”  This miracle brings to mind that recorded in Luke 5, 4-6, to which Peter responded by saying to the Lord Jesus, “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Peter may have recollected that miracle with this new catch of fish and realized it was Jesus on the shore.  This would help explain his reaction, jumping into the water in his excitement.  John’s cry, It is the Lord!” confirmed what Peter already knew.

Three times after the Lord’s rising he appeared to disciples and they did not recognize him: Mary Magdalene, in the Gospel of John, the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and here.  We may learn from this to keep the Lord in our thoughts as we move about the day as he works in our lives and calls us to work with him.  We see him directing the Apostles from the shore, and he does this with us from heaven.  “Watch ye therefore (for you know not when the lord of the house comes, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning): lest coming on a sudden, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch” (Mark 13, 35–37).  

Thursday in the Octave of Easter, April 9, 2026

Luke 24, 35–48

The disciples of Jesus recounted what had taken place along the way, and how they had come to recognize him in the breaking of bread. While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

Both St. John and St. Luke give the time for the Lord’s appearance to the Apostles as towards sunset.  John says, “It was late the same day” (John 20, 19) while Luke tells us that it was dark or nearly dark when the two disciples returned to Jerusalem, an episode that precedes the present Gospel Reading.  Neither Matthew nor Mark record an appearance by Jesus to the Apostles on Easter Sunday.

“Peace be with you.”  The Greek text from which the English is translated may be providing a rough equivalent for the Hebrew shalom, which can have that meaning.  It is not a casual greeting, for the Lord’s appearance naturally startled the Apostles and the others.  Luke, indeed, comments, “They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.”  Once before they had seen him and reacted in this way.  Mark 6, 49: “But they seeing him walking upon the sea, thought it was a ghost, and they cried out.”  “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?”  They recognize him but they think he is a ghost which has come back to punish them for abandoning him in his Passion.  The Lord first assures them that he is not a ghost: “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”  He offers the Apostles his wounded hands and feet as his identification.  One day, when he come again, all of us will recognize him through the wounds in his hands and feet.  They are signs of his suffering and signs of mercy.  He will welcome the just into heaven with those hands and he will banish the wicked into hell with them.

“They were . . . incredulous for joy and were amazed.”  Their fright becomes joy as their love for him overcomes their fear of punishment.  If we would sit down and think about what the Lord has done for us in his Passion and Death we would be incredulous for joy as well.  “They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.”  The Lord takes pains to demonstrate that it is not merely his soul taking the form of a man that they see, but that his Body has been brought back to life.  St. John, in his Gospel, also emphasizes that the Lord’s Body was raised up, as if to say, It is really him and not a trick of the light or a figment of the imagination: “That . . . which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1, 1).

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled.”  The Lord is as good as telling them that those who refused to believe in him — above all, the Pharisees and the Jewish leadership — had refused to believe in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.  “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”  Here he addresses the false idea that the Messiah would restore the kingdom of Israel.  This narrow conception came from the Pharisees and not from the Scriptures. “Repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”  The Lord himself had preached repentance but now the Apostles would preach it and their preaching would be validated by the greatest proof of God’s power, the Resurrection of the Lord.  The preaching would “begin” in Jerusalem, as in fact we see in the early chapters of The Acts of the Apostles, and then it would be carried into the whole world.  

“You are witnesses of these things.”  The Lord makes a solemn declaration here, as though reminding them that they would be called upon to give testimony at the proper time.  He calls them “witnesses” and not “onlookers” or “spectators”.  They have an official position in a juridical process.  A spectator may walk away from what he sees, but a witness is v bound to testify.  You and I are witnesses of the Lord Jesus too, and we testify not only with our words, but especially with our actions.

Wednesday in the Octave of Easter, April 8, 2026

Luke 24, 13–35

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his Body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 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. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

St. Luke is the only Evangelist to report on the Lord’s post-Resurrection appearance to the two disciples walking to Emmaus.  He may have gotten the details on this encounter with Jesus from Cleopas, the disciple whom he names in his account.  John 19, 25 tells of a certain Mary of Cleopas who stood under the Cross with the Blessed Mother and St. John, and comparing this verse with similarly placed verses in Matthew and Mark, it would seem that she was “the other Mary” who was the mother of James and Joseph, relatives of the Lord. The early Church historian Hegesippus (d. 180) records the tradition that she was the sister of St. Joseph.  Cleopas would have been her husband.  When the disciples speak of “some women from our group” who had seen the risen Lord, Cleopas would have been speaking of his wife, who went to the tomb with the other women.  Cleopas has a feast day on September 25 while Mary is celebrated on April 24.

“They were conversing about all the things that had occurred.”  Cleopas and his fellow disciple seem to be returning to Emmaus after spending the Passover in Jerusalem.  The walk from that city to Emmaus should only have taken them a few hours.  As they walked they exchanged information about “the things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene” and lamented his Death, which seemed to them to be the end of their hopes for the redemption of Israel — they are thinking in terms of him being a political Messiah.  “Their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.”  Their conviction that he was dead may have kept them from knowing him or he may have taken another form.  John reports the Mary Magdalene also did not know him when she first saw him and thought him to be a gardener.  Even after the Apostles had seen and touched him on Easter Sunday and on the Sunday after that, they did not recognize him as they were fishing a week or two subsequently.  John also reports this.  

“What are you discussing as you walk along?”  We can understand this story in spiritual terms as our life on earth: after baptism we make our way to our true home, the “day” of our lifetimes shortening as we do so.  Our conversation — our words and deeds — revolve around the Lord Jesus.  He is foremost in our hearts and minds and his glory is the motivation for what we do.  We do not walk alone, but with our fellow believers, and we talk, work, and pray together, assisting each other on the way of salvation.  It is the Lord himself who nourishes us on this way, giving us his Body and Blood to eat and drink.  Strengthened by this heavenly food and drink, we are able to finish our journey.  At times, we feel very close to him, especially when we read the Scriptures and hear his words in our hearts, telling us of his torrential love for us which led him to die on the Cross to save us.  Knowing him means being excited to tell others about him so that they might know him too: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” 

“The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”  That is, to Peter.  This may be a separate appearance the Lord made either before or after he appeared to all eleven of the Apostles, or this may be shorthand for, “He has appeared to Simon and the other Apostles.”  The literary device of “a part for the whole” is common in the Scriptures.  This would make sense because by the time Cleopas and his companion return to Jerusalem it is Sunday evening and the Lord has already appeared to the Apostles.

May our hearts also burn when we read or hear the words of the Lord.