We should be, as Nouwen points out, on a mission. Like the two men on the road to Emmaus who suddenly realized “ This is the Christ!” we should be compelled to rush out and share the news with our friends, our family, our community. And this is very difficult, because everyone at home knows us so well: Our impatience, our jealousies, our resentments, and our many little games … The Eucharistic celebration has summarized for us what our life of faith is all about, and we have to go home to live it as long and fully as we can. On the night before his death, Jesus broke bread and shared wine with the twelve, telling them this was the New Covenant and calling them to share this meal “in memory of me.” Christ was calling them (and us!) not just to a meal, but to a way of life – the Eucharistic life. They were lifted from the very depths of despair as their Master was tortured and killed, and they themselves hid in terror. We can only imagine the wonder of the Apostles. As writer and priest Henri Nouwen says, “Everything has changed.” From the moment Mary Magdalen rushed from the empty tomb to tell the Apostles that the Lord was not there, to the men on the road to Emmaus who hustled out to find the Apostles and tell them that they had seen the Lord, to Christ’s compelling promise that, as He left, He would send the Spirit to them. He bears the wounds of His crucifixion, yet is able to walk and talk and eat with the Apostles. What strange and wonderful days these are, these days between the Resurrection of Christ and His Ascension! He lives, yet is clearly in a bodily form that is not instantly recognizable.
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