Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 18 of Season 6 for the Third Sunday of Easter: April 23, 2023. Our Gospel reading from Luke: Chapter 24, verses 13-35.
That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus' disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them, "What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. 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?” 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, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. 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. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning 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. 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."
And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay wi th them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. 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?"
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, "The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.
The Gospel of the Lord.
“We Journey Not Alone” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
Where do we look, and to whom do we look to understand the stories of our lives and what it really means to be human?
Each one of our lives is a marvelous composition - a story unfolding of many and varied experiences and circumstances, all coming together to form us into the person we find ourselves to be today.
As we look back on the journey of our lives and the story that unfolds, we begin to see how each piece is essential to the greater work of who we are - to become who we are as a person. As we encounter all of the experiences life brings before us, we begin to see that some of them are the experiences of opposites, that at one in the same time, we can experience great success and tremendous failure. We can have moments of profound faith but heart-wrenching doubt. We can find ourselves embracing hope but also wallowing in despair. We can find shows bearing the cross of illness but also experiencing great healing. We can find ourselves celebrating the gift of life but then also mourning the sadness of death.
These polar opposites can dance around in the stories of our lives, but do we hear the right voice and look to the right place to understand their purpose and their role in the greater vision of who I am?
As we consider that question, we look to the world and can ask of the world and our secular lives, does the world have the ability to truly interpret the story of my life? Does the world have the ability to tap the deep recesses of who I am? Does the world have the ability to truly embrace the depth of my soul? Can the world touch me where I need to be touched and give me the meaning I so desperately seek?
As we ponder that question, we realize that if we do pursue the ways of the world and look only to what secular life has to offer us, we will quickly find ourselves without any hope, and we will wrestle with despair.
It is only the word of God, the very presence of God, the word that is alive, empowering, creative, the very essence of God himself, who can interpret our stories for us and who can show us what it really means to be human. It is this powerful, creative, effective word of God as revealed in the pages of sacred scriptures and in the stories that are found therein. Stories of people of faith who have journeyed with the same polar opposites that we do, who have wrestled with the doubt and embraced faith, who have found themselves with despair, and then discovering hope, who have found themselves treasuring life, but also dreading death. And through those pages of sacred scripture and through the stories that they contain, the powerful word of God shines forth as a testimony for us to reach out to, look to, and use in creating and understanding our own life stories.
It is the powerful, creative, effective word of God who visits us every time we celebrate the Eucharist as the word made flesh in the very body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. A powerful and effective word whom alone can touch the depth of our soul, claim us for who we are and show us that we are not just a human being, but we are a beautifully composed work of divine art. That each one of us has been crafted and made in the image and likeness of the one we seek, and he alone can support us and sustain us and bring us the life we so desire.
It is the word made flesh in the sacredness of scripture and in the wonderful gift of the Eucharist that interprets our stories and tells us what it means to be human, who brings all of those holder opposites together. Because maybe they're not so opposite after all because God can use our failure to bring us to success. God can use our doubt to bring us to faith. God can use our despair to show us hope. God can use our illness to bring us healing. God can take our moments of hatred and turn them into love. God can take death and return it to life. Only God alone can do that. Because in the end, the Pascal mystery reminds us that life always wins. Life always wins, and all of those things are a part of a greater mystery of all of us becoming one in Christ, eternally in heaven. And so through the powerful word that comes to us through scripture, through the Eucharist, we can learn to not only see the events of our life for what they are, to name them and understand them, but to recognize that in and through all things that shape us into the person we find ourselves to be in every moment and every opportunity that presents itself before us, we journey, not alone, but walking beside us and with us, is the rise in Christ who has been with us all along, but whom we have not been able to see.
May the Eucharist, the word of God in scripture, open our minds, enlighten us, and open our eyes that we can truly recognize who is with us and what the meaning and purpose of life is truly all about.
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.