They recognized Jesus at the breaking of the bread. ~Luke 24:31
It seems to me there is one page of the Gospel for each one of us. Some weep with Mary Magdalene before the empty tomb and suddenly He appears: a man who pronounces their names in a low voice. Others put their fingers in the open wounds with Thomas. For my part, I have walked all my life with the two tired travelers who entered Emmaus in the evening. Christ was dead; they had lost everything. Only now, when the shadows of my life are deepening, do I understand what I wrote twenty years ago on this subject in my Life of Jesus: "Who among us is not familiar with the inn at Emmaus? Who has not walked on this road in the evening when all seemed lost? Christ was dead within us. They had taken Him from us -- the world, the philosophers and sages, our passions. There was no Jesus for us on the earth. We followed a road, and Someone walked at our side. We were alone and yet we were not alone. It was evening. Here was an open door, the obscurity of a room where the flame from the fireplace lightened nothing but the trampled earth and made the shadows flicker. O broken bread! O breaking of the bread, consummated in spite of so much misery! 'Stay with us…the day declineth…' The day declineth, life is coming to a close. Childhood seems further away than the beginning of the world; and our lost youth means no more to us than the last sound in the dead trees of an unknown park…"
~François Mauriac in The Son of Man
Therefore my heart is glad,
and my soul rejoices...
In Thy presence there is fullness of joy...
~Psalm 16(15):9, 11
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