Luke 24:13-35
“We were hoping that he would be the Redeemer of Israel. “
And behold, two of them went out, on the same day, to a town named Emmaus, which was the distance of sixty stadia from Jerusalem. And they spoke to one another about all of these things that had occurred.
And it happened that, while they were speculating and questioning within themselves, Jesus himself, drawing near, traveled with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they would not recognize him.
And he said to them, “What are these words, which you are discussing with one another, as you walk and are sad?”
And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, responded by saying to him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said, “About Jesus of Nazareth, who was a noble prophet, powerful in works and in words, before God and all the people. And how our high priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death. And they crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the Redeemer of Israel. And now, on top of all this, today is the third day since these things have happened. Then, too, certain women from among us terrified us. For before daytime, they were at the tomb, and, having not found his body, they returned, saying that they had even seen a vision of Angels, who said that he is alive. And some of us went out to the tomb. And they found it just as the women had said. But truly, they did not find him.”
And he said to them: “How foolish and reluctant in heart you are, to believe everything that has been spoken by the Prophets! Was not the Christ required to suffer these things, and so enter into his glory?”
And beginning from Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them, in all the Scriptures, the things that were about him.
And they drew near to the town where they were going. And he conducted himself so as to go on further. But they were insistent with him, saying, “Remain with us, because it is toward evening and now daylight is declining.” And so he entered with them.
And it happened that, while he was at table with them, he took bread, and he blessed and broke it, and he extended it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.
And they said to one another, “Was not our heart burning within us, while he was speaking on the way, and when he opened the Scriptures to us?” And rising up at that same hour, they returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven gathered together, and those who were with them, saying: “In truth, the Lord has risen, and he has appeared to Simon.”
And they explained the things that were done on the way, and how they had recognized him at the breaking of the bread.
What do the Fathers say?
St THEOPHYLACT. The disciples talked to one another of the things which had happened, not as believing them, but as bewildered at events so extraordinary.
They expected that Christ would redeem Israel from the Roman slavery.
They trusted also that He was an earthly king, whom they thought would be able to escape the sentence of death passed upon Him.
And yet those men seem not to have been altogether without faith, they seem to have some recollection that the Lord had told them that He would rise again on the third day.
The Venerable BEDE. And as they spoke of Him, the Lord comes near and joins them, so that He may both influence their minds with faith in His resurrection, and fulfil that which He had promised, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Reason had they then for sorrow, because in some way they blamed themselves for having hoped for redemption in Him whom now they saw dead, and believed not that He would rise again, and most of all they bewailed Him put to death without a cause, whom they knew to be innocent.
Pope St GREGORY the Great. He refrained from manifesting to them a form which they might recognise, doing outwardly in the eyes of the body, that which was done by themselves inwardly in the eyes of the mind. For they in themselves inwardly both loved and doubted. Therefore because they talked of Him He exhibited His presence, but because they had doubts about Him He concealed the appearance which they knew.
The Venerable BEDE. But if Moses and the Prophets spoke of Christ, and prophesied that through His Passion He would enter into glory, how does that man boast that he is a Christian, who neither searches how these Scriptures relate to Christ, nor desires to attain by suffering to that glory which he hopes to have with Christ.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. And our Lord goes on to show that all these things did not happen in a common way, but from the predestined purpose of God.
Pope St GREGORY the Great. And he went in with them. They lay out a table, they bring food. And God whom they had not recognized in the expounding of Scriptures, they recognized in the breaking of bread;
And their eyes were opened, and they knew him.
St THEOPHYLACT. 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.