Heart’s burning

From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, 30th  April 2017

We are all stressed at times. It’s part of being human and being involved in life. I just wonder have you noticed what part of you is affected when you’re stressed. Is it your head (headaches?) your heart, (heaviness?) your stomach (knotted inside?) I know a bishop who told me when he’s stressed he gets cold sores.I knew a girl who, when the relationship with the boyfriend didn’t seem to be going anywhere, developed Bell’s palsy and depression. But when he popped the champagne and popped the ring and popped the question, the palsy was cured almost immediately! Amazing, isn’t it?

Something similar is happening in the lovely gospel story this weekend. The two disciples tramping home the seven miles to Emmaus were tired, heavy, stressed and depressed by all that had happened in the previous few days.  There’s probably not much chat. Their hope has gone; their dream has died. They had hoped Jesus was the one that would save Israel. But he’s dead. And everything has died with him. The dream is over. Maybe it was a foolish dream, a foolish hope?

And then Jesus joins them but they’re so down they don’t even recognise that it is Jesus. But he begins to open their minds and hearts to see and understand that it had to be this way; that there was meaning in all that had happened. It was necessary for Christ to suffer before entering into his glory. That’s what Moses and the prophets had been talking about all along. And, as they listen, their hope begins to flicker into life again until they are able to say, “Were not our hearts burning within us as he explained the scriptures to us.”

And because their hearts are changed, everything is changed. They’re not depressed any more; they’re not tired any more; it’s no problem at all to walk back the whole seven miles to Jerusalem. In fact, it’s the only thing to do! They imagine all the joyful chat on that return journey!almost have to! They have to share the good news! And just

All is changed because their hearts are changed. And their hearts are changed by the power of the word they have heard. They have been nourished by the Eucharist. They had heard the word on the road and they recognised Jesus at ‘the breaking of the bread’, an old name for the Eucharist.

In our time, we need to come to see all that is happening today in our world and our church (tough as it is to deal with) as part of that same story. Richard Rohr says the church was only an adolescent at the time of the Reformation (“We’re right, you’re wrong!”) And, at the present time, the church is only about 21! I like that. We’re a work in progress. We have a long way to go yet!