“With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.”

          For the third Sunday in a row, we are seeing the events of Easter Sunday from another angle. The discovery of the empty tomb happens early on Easter morning. Then, Cleopas and his companion set off for Emaus, probably going home in disappointment. After their departure, Christ appears to Simon Peter and then to all the Apostles gathered in the upper room. Then, he joins Cleopas and his companion on the road late in the afternoon. It is quite the eventful day, and we can see that the Lord’s risen body is no longer bound by the normal rules of space and time.

          Cleopas and his unnamed friend are confused and disappointed. St. Luke says that when Christ meets them, they look “downcast.” They are shaken out of their stupor by encountering this man who seems completely clueless. “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days? … The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene.” They, though, are the ones who turn out to be clueless, as the Lord tells them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!”, since everything that happened in those days to Jesus of Nazareth was foretold in the Jewish scriptures.

          In a clearly Eucharistic moment, their eyes are opened to the identity of this not-actually-clueless stranger. We usually focus on how the breaking of the bread reveals the identity of Christ, just as the “breaking of the bread” in Holy Communion reveals the Lord’s real presence to us.

But there is another important detail here that St. Luke clearly wants us to notice. “Their eyes were opened.” This phrase occurs only one other time in the Scriptures. “Their eyes were opened.” It is when Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit, and their eyes are opened to their nakedness. As we have seen this Lent and Easter, Christ comes not only to redeem and ransom, as St. Paul tells us today, but to heal the effects of sin in us.

Adam and Eve’s eyes are opened when they eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What they did was wrong not because of an arbitrary rule created by God: “You can eat of any tree except this one, because I said so! I’m testing you!” No, God is not arbitrary or whimsical. God wanted Adam and Eve to eventually share in the knowledge of good and evil, but they were not ready. They jumped the gun in their pride to become like gods. They wanted to define good and evil for themselves, rather than having their eyes opened at the right time to see God’s good purposes, and the reason for which He guides human conduct through the moral law, to lead us to true happiness – to have eyes of faith that can see Him at work.

Like Adam and Eve, and like Cleopas and his friend, our eyes are often downcast, and we struggle to see God’s good purposes working in the world. We can miss the Lord’s presence with us because of despair over sin, sadness at loss, disappointment at failure. It can be hard to see how God is working in your life.

How, then, do you escape that cycle of navel-gazing and being downcast to look up and see the Lord at work? One way is to take a break from the constant loop of self-critical analysis and look for how God is working in someone else’s life. Many times, it is easier to see God at work in the life of someone else than it is in your own.

Maybe God is opening an opportunity in your friend’s life. Maybe he is uniquely fitted to do some good work, to help someone in a particular way. Maybe people look up to him, and he has the chance to be a mentor. You could notice the devotion and sincere love for the Lord of so many Catholic young people. God has been at work in their families, in their schools, and in their own hearts. Your spouse has been more attentive and devoted. Your son or daughter shows a new maturity. Ask the Lord to open your eyes to what He is doing in the lives of those you care about!

You can start by pointing out how God is working to those you know will be receptive and excited to hear about Him, someone who you can tell is a person of prayer and has sincere love for the Lord. Once you try that a few times, though, don’t stop there! Push yourself to identify a way that God is at work in the life of someone who wouldn’t normally think about God’s action in his life. This can be a great and positive way to start a conversation about faith. It’s hard to come off as accusative or judgmental when you’re telling someone about something great that you see happening in her life.

How do you best go about starting that conversation? We often have this instinct that we have to use special spiritual language to talk about what God is doing. This could not be farther from the truth. Don’t tell someone, “God told me to tell you that you’re doing a great job as a mother!” She’ll be happy to hear that you think she’s a great mother, but she will also probably be weirded out at the notion of you having a direct line to the Almighty. You’ll also confirm the impression many sceptics have that religious experiences originate in our own psyche. And worst of all, when people talk like this, they’re turning a supposed complement into an occasion to brag about their own prayer life, implying that they’re receiving inner locutions normally reserved to the very greatest of mystics.

Instead, just sound normal: “I keep seeing your daughter at Adoration on her own. It’s so beautiful and encouraging to see that! God is really at work in your family.” Putting it that way, 1) Identifies the concrete expression of God’s work that you see, 2) Avoids giving your own prayer life too much credit, and 3) Focuses on the joy we should all take in seeing God at work.

If we identify and share how God is at work in the lives of those around us, two great things can happen. First, we create a culture of celebrating God’s loving intervention in our lives, an attunement to the Holy Spirit. When there is a culture like this, others will point out to you how God is working in your life, opening your eyes to Christ’s presence. Second, the very act of looking for and pointing out God’s work in the life of another opens your eyes to His presence and work in your life. It cultivates a supernatural perspective that leads to hope and joy in the presence of Christ, who, in St. Paul’s words today, was “revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

III Sunday of Easter, A.D. MMXXVI