The post-Resurrection panorama is essentially a vivid display of the apostolic kerygma. One appearance after another and in the 1st Reading, we hear the repeated proclamation of St Peter that Christ is truly risen. It is not that He is merely risen but that He is also present. And through the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus we appreciate how biblically established the Sacrament of the Eucharist is. This Sacrament of Sacraments is grounded in the aftermath experience of the Risen Christ by the apostolic community.
Why is the Road to Emmaus important for us?
There has never been a moment that Jesus is not with His Church. We are never alone. What is more likely is we often fail to recognise Him because we can be overwhelmed by despair and hopelessness that not even the brilliance of God is bright enough to burn off the scales blinding our eyes. In the case of these two disciples, their departure indicated that they had abandoned Jerusalem in despair. Thus, Jesus accompanying these dejected disciples, who could not recognise Him, is critical to a deeper insight and appreciation of the meaning of Eucharistic presence.
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is embedded in the story of the Road to Emmaus. The structure of the Eucharist we celebrate today was already captured nearly two thousand years ago. No one can say that the Catholic Mass is “hocus pocus” without being scripturally insulting. In fact, the awesome confession “Did not our hearts burned within us as He spoke to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?” encapsulates the Liturgy of Word. And “While He was with them at table, He 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” embodies the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
Sadly, we breathe the rarefied air where the mind is prized over the body. Basically, “meaning” is paramount and it is determined by understanding. If a thing were “incomprehensible”, then it is as good as meaningless. Also, meaning is measured by palpable feelings and emotions. For example, you may have come across marriages falling apart because there are no feelings left. Or if not, gone are the days when children will sit respectfully in the company of a group of adults engaged in a conversation they have no understanding of. Instead, they have to be “entertained” endlessly with their handheld devices. Just like what happens at Mass these days. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is because we have restricted “meaning” to the realm of comprehensibility or understanding. In other words, what is real resides in the head.
In this context, the manner in which the Eucharist is celebrated, is highly stylised. It requires formulaic recitations and performative rituals because it deals with mystery, something beyond the senses. When hyper-consciousness values the mind more than the body, repetitive formularies and rituals can come across as mindless, incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. A generation terrified by the loss of meaning will lament: Attending Mass is meaningless.
But meaning is not merely personal as it is also interpersonal. Perhaps the loss of meaning is an unintended consequence of restricting meaning to just the component of understanding. Meaning seems to revolve around what my head can grapple with and that can make the Mass a bit less engaging. If the Mass is both the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, then assisting at Mass, apart from worshipping and praising God, is to feed both the head and also the body. Liturgy directs our attention towards a meaning far greater than what the individual mind can grasp. The liturgy engages both the head and the body.
The ritualised performative actions within the Eucharist can rescue us from a selfishness imposed by the primacy of consciousness. Through the recognition of Jesus, we are led to others. The Eucharist is not just food that sustains but it also shifts our focus from the self to others as exemplified in the two disciples running back to inform Peter and the college of apostles. The communitarian spirituality of the Eucharist leads us to others. Benedict XVI said that “nourishing ourselves with Christ is the way to avoid becoming extraneous or indifferent to the fate of the brothers”. A truly Eucharistic spirituality is the antidote to the individualism and selfishness that characterise life as we know it now. Through the Eucharist, we rediscover the centrality of relationships.
Now that we enter a post-pandemic recovery period, the Eucharist for the Church is even more important on account of the effects that prolonged isolation had on society. The surge in revenge travel is a telling hint that travel is not just for personal enjoyment but it could express the hunger for connexion. The irony is that the same hunger is not expressed through Church attendance. Within the Eucharistic community, there seems to be a gap between what we need and how we express that need.
In the 4th century, 49 martyrs stood against an Imperial edict that prohibited the celebration of the Eucharist. At the trial when interrogated, Emeritus the lector said, “Sine dominico non possumus” meaning “without Sunday we are not”. Another translation which says, “We cannot live without Sunday” shows that the Eucharist is a basic component of who we are as Christians and Catholics. In these days of heightened fear, all the more the Eucharist is the necessary antidote to a “self-ishness” brought about by an enforced isolation. The ease of delivery services, or WFH, all safety conveniences no doubt, have imprisoned some of us behind the walls of “me and my needs”. The Eucharist is where we encounter the Risen Christ to find strength to break the walls of a selfish existence so that we can reconnect with both God and with one another.
