Luke 24:13-35 - Wednesday gospel
13 Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
14 and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
15 And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
16 but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, "What are you discussing as you walk along?" They stopped, looking downcast.
18 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?"
19 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,
20 how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him.
21 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.
22 Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning
23 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.
24 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."
25 And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?"
27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.
28 As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
29 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.
30 And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.
31 With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.
32 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?"
33 So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them
34 who were saying, "The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!"
35 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.
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Their eyes were prevented from recognizing them, but it was revealed through the breaking of the bread. From the earliest times of the Church, this has been viewed as a demonstration of the power of the Eucharist. Here's some "dust" from Aquinas' Catena Aurea:
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT (7th century). Now behold Christ since He is received
through His members, so He seeks His receivers through Himself; for it follows, And he went in with them. They lay out a table, they bring food. And God whom they had not known in the expounding of Scriptures, they knew in the breaking of bread; for it follows, And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and broke, and gave it to
them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him.
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (4th century). This was said not of their bodily eyes,
but of their mental sight.
ST. AUGUSTINE (4th century). For they walked not with their eyes shut, but there was something within them which did not permit them to know that which they saw, which a mist, darkness, or some kind of moisture, frequently occasions. Not that the Lord was not able to Transform His flesh that it should be really a different form from that which they were accustomed to behold; since in truth also before His passion, He was transfigured in the
mount, so that His face was bright as the sun. But it was not so now. For we do not unfitly take this obstacle in the sight to have been caused by Satan, that Jesus might not be known. But still it was so permitted by Christ up to the sacrament of the bread, that by partaking of the unity of His body, the obstacle of the enemy might be understood to be removed, so that Christ might be known.
THEOPHYLACT (12th century). But He also implies another thing, that the eyes of those who receive the sacred bread are opened that they should know Christ. For the Lord’s flesh has in it a great and ineffable power.
The Church considers the Eucharist the "Source and Summit" of our faith. It's important to know what the Church means by this. Here's a link to "the horse's mouth":
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm
