Stepping Stones 3 - The Road to Emmaus (full)

[Music] from the Gospel of Luke chapter 24 that same day the day of the resurrection two of Jesus's disciples were on their way to a village called Emmaus and as they were walking they were talking about all the things that had been happening not something that Jesus came and journeys with them but something prevented them from recognizing who he was what things are you talking about brothers as you walk along they stopped short their faces downcast then one of them called Cleophus answered you must be the only person in Jerusalem who doesn't know the things that have been happening there these past few days what things brothers all about Jesus of Nazareth who proved he was a great prophet in the sight of God and all the people and how our chief priests and elders handed him over to have him crucified our own hope is bended he would be the one who set Israel free and that is not all two whole days have gone by since it all happened and some women from our group went to the tomb and not finding the body they came back to declare they had seen a vision of angels who declared he was alive now some men from our group went to the tomb and they found everything exactly as the women had said but a human they saw nothing not a thing you foolish man so slow to believe the full message of the prophets was it not ordained that the Christ would suffer and I and so enter into his glory then beginning with Moses and going through all of the scriptures he explained those passages that were about himself when they reached the place to which they were going he made as if to go on but they pressed him to stay with him the day is almost over and night is almost here so he went in and he took his place a table and he took the bread and he pronounced the blessing and he broke the bread [Music] and he gave it to each of now [Music] in their eyes we're hoping and they recognized [Music] you can [Music] but he had vanished from their sight did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scripture to us they set out that instant for Jerusalem and there they found the eleven assembled together who declared yes it is true he had risen and he's appeared to Simon then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had come to recognize him in the breaking in the breaking of the brain [Music] without a doubt that's my favorite resurrection story chapter 24 from Luke's Gospel I believe it's the story actually of every Christian because just like those disciples on the road to Emmaus don't we go through periods of dealt with in our own life we have expectations of how our life is going to play out we have dreams and we have hopes and sometimes things play out exactly the way that we want them but most of the time life is filled with twists and turns just like those disciples they had seen Jesus performed miracles they had followed him for some time and their faith was strong in him but they had expectations of what a messiah was going to look like certainly they could never have imagined a crucified Messiah when they saw a Lazarus come forth from the grave perhaps they even saw Jesus walk on the water perhaps they were there when he multiplied the loaves and the fishes maybe they were even there at the wedding feast of Cana I don't know all of the details but what we do know is that they had a strong belief in him but that belief was shattered and ended when Jesus was crucified they were leaving Jerusalem and they were going to this town of Emmaus now I love this detail of the story that Jesus walks along with them as you may have surmised I have a background in drama and storytelling and I and I love the fact that Jesus walks along with them and he doesn't let on who he is they say to him where have you been are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's going on and jesus plays along with the world guys I've been out of town a little while now tell me you but why are you so upset and they open their heart and they share their sad story the story of disappointed dreams and hopes I think that's an important element because the Lord invites each one of us to share our life story with him in prayer sometimes we think that when we come into prayer we have to be on our best behavior and we have to tell Lord the Lord all the good deeds that we've done the Lord doesn't Lord already knows what's going on and if our hearts are been broken or were angry or we're frustrated or were disappointed but the Lord wants more than anything else is for us to be honest in our prayer that's the key to how we grow is to be honest about the struggles in our own life and the disciples on the road to emmaus are that they're honest and they name their hopes and after Jesus has teased out their story and they've told what needed to be told Jesus connects their story with the great story of Scripture he marries the two together he said to them was it not necessary that the Christ would suffer and die and so enter into his glory the path to the resurrection has to go through Good Friday or is the very preacher Archbishop Fulton sheen used to say there is no Easter Sunday without a good Friday then when they reach the place to which they were going Jesus again as the actor pretends to go on another important detail they had to invite him to come and to be with them they had to invite him into their banquet and into their evening meal so it is with each one of us I think over and over again we need to invite Jesus into our families we need to invite Jesus into our ministry we need to invite Jesus into our marriages we need to invite Jesus into the joys and the struggles of our hearts we have to ask him to be there with us because the Lord will never break down the door he comes to those hearts that welcome him that invite him in in those disciples who do that and they break this bread he says the blessing and he breaks the bread and at that moment and the Eucharistic overtones are very clear in Luke's Gospel at that moment their eyes are opened and they recognized Jesus it says if Luke is saying to that early Christian community where do we find Jesus we find him at Mass we find him in the Holy Eucharist we find him in this breaking of his body under the form of bread and their eyes are opened and then I love this detail they say did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scripture to us they think back on the experience and then the light bulb goes off and they realize that their hearts were burning is not so often that we have the experience but we're so caught up in the experience it's only when we take time to reflect on it that we begin to say that was a really significant moment in my life that's one of the reasons why Saint Ignatius Loyola the founder of the religious order I belong to the Jesuits st. Ignatius insisted that at the end of the day we take 10 to 15 minutes and we think back over our day and we just ask ourselves where have I found God in this day what have been the choices that led me closer to the Lord what had been the choices that led me further away from the Lord like the disciples on the road to Emmaus when their eyes are opened they think back on the experience and they say when we were on the road our hearts were burning as he connected the scripture to us and then they can't wait to get back to the to the community of faith and to share their story of what had happened in their faith encourages the faith of the disciples who who are gathered together and they say yes it is true he's appeared to Simon and they say and we saw him too it's not the way it works so many people say I'm spiritual I'm not religious I don't know they need to go to church Church is filled with a bunch of hypocrites there are a bunch of phonies I'm just going to find God on my own yes we can find God on our own no question about that but just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus when we share our story of how God has come into our life it bolsters the faith of others and others face strengthens our faith notice that Jesus appeared to those disciples as a team there were two of them together and one of those disciples his name Cleophus the other is on is unnamed who's that other disciples another disciple is you that other disciple is me because that's why I say this story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is everyone's story you know this came alive to me in a very personal and profound way was the death of two very significant people in my life i dad and my best friend my dad died of cancer it took 12 years and he went in and out of remission and he had all kinds of therapy and was a gradual diminishment my dad was not a crier but I'll never forget the day he came home from the doctors and he told us I had cancer and they think it's terminal and he broke down and cried I had ever seen my dad cry before and he said Michael don't misunderstand I'm not afraid of death I'm not afraid of meeting God but I am afraid of losing everything that I've worked for my entire life you see my dad was a self-made man his dad had died he was only 12 years old though he had to work to put his sister through school he had to work to put himself through school he was a brilliant businessman he he owned his own business company and he did very well and my dad's motto was if I'm going to join an organization I may as well be president because nobody's going to run it better than me that was my dad's motto he was a leader and when he got cancer he could see the handwriting on the wall that everything that he had worked for was going to be stripped away and his worst fears were realized first he lost the ability to be able to walk he had to walk with with a walker and he lost control of his bladder he lost control of his bowels and he couldn't even feed himself in the end and my daddy if he could do anything he could talk is a great salesman in the end he lost the ability to be able to speak not overwhelmed my dad he shut down he closed he closed sell and he pushed away the people in his that he loved the most my mom his wife all the members of our family couldn't get inside because that experience of losing everything like those disciples on the road to emmaus having their hearts - my dad's hopes were dashed and pushed us out and I kept praying Lord crack opened my dad's heart so that he can experience that peace or he dies don't you be sure there were little moments here and there by and large my dad was overwhelmed by the suffering and the humiliation that the cancer brought he was a proud man he was a leader and when he was when it was taken away cracked his spirit that he never recovered from I preach from my dad long and hard after after he died and I believe that he is at peace but it was not a happy death not too long after my dad died my best friend a diocesan priest from Cincinnati father Jim Willig was diagnosed with cancer what was ironic about that was we had just returned from leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land we had just been at Emmaus the story that I just told you a few moments ago I acted that out on the actual site that scholars believe town of Emmaus is is located and when we got tracks back from that pilgrimage I'm best friend's father Jim said doctors have told me I have two years to live we have renal cell cancer that has metastasized and spread to my body but Jim was in Cincinnati and the archdiocese fish-shaped there asked everybody in archdiocese to pray for father Jim he was very popular charismatic he had his own TV show he had his own Bible that he had 500 Catholics coming to his parish every day to study each week the gospel but despite the the most advanced medicine that was available at the time they couldn't stop the cancer but here was the difference between my friend's father Jim and my dad in the midst of the profound stripping and the pain and the humiliation of the cancer but the Jim was able to open his heart he invited me to become his spiritual director I was living in Chicago he was in Cincinnati but we committed to weekly phone meeting and as often as I could at least every other month and sometimes every month I made that journey back and forth between Cincinnati and Chicago father Jim poured out as far he poured out his anger he poured out his frustration he poured out his fear he didn't hide anything back from those conversations with me and more importantly I encouraged him to continue to bring all of that into his prayer the Father Jim in the midst of that two-year cancer journey went from being a holy priest to a saint to an extraordinarily holy individual and that became transparent in the two years of his cancer journey the size of his parish tripled in the two years of his and in the two years of his cancer journey he touched more people more profoundly than the 25 years of his priesthood prior to that because he became so radically real when people talked about when he talked about his suffering and people heard him preach and he talked about the intimacy that he was experiencing in the Lord in prayer people knew that he wasn't biessing them he was telling them the truth he was opening his heart and it was a wisdom and it was an intimacy that was born of great pain when father Jim died on the newspapers of the major headlines in the Cincinnati newspaper and I'm at least two if not three of the major television networks they carried the news holy priest dies of cancer inspires thousands now I just asked you when was the last time you saw a picture of a priest on a secular paper or on a secular news show and inspiring people with the heroism with which he embraced his suffering father Jim invited me into his heart well that was a great healing in my life because I love my dad very much but the suffering that my dad endured broke him and he pushed us away because was frightened to allow us to see him that vulnerable if the father Jim gave me and to so many was in the midst of his suffering he allowed us to see him and that was a profound healing in my life it healed that brokenness that I experienced from my own from my dad's own death a people change in life some do some don't a gift to faith allows us in the twists and turns of life in the heartaches and the disappointments not to simply be shattered but to be transformed the one Saint that I knew in my life father Jim Willick and he was privileged to be my friend his story gives me hope when I feel discouraged when I when I experience disappointments or heartaches or failures or my own sin threatens to overwhelm me it's at those times that I remember other Jim in his example it's at those times that I remember I'm still on that journey I'm that unnamed disciple walking with the Lord and he invites me to tell my story to him as he invites you to tell your story to come to church to let your eyes be opened and to recognize him in the breaking of the bread amen evening [Music] you

Channel: Heart to Heart, A Catholic Media Ministry

Views: 5,604

Rating: 4.9729729 out of 5

Keywords: Sparough, Heart to Heart, J Michael Sparough, J Michael Sparough SJ, Fr. Michael, Shalom World, Shalom World TV, ShalomWorldTV, Stepping Stones, Emmaus, Luke 24, Catholic, Christian, Gospel, Drama

Id: 0qehAW0OlmU

Length: 22min 24sec (1344 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2017