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Easter Season · Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord · Year C

Afternoon or evening Mass: Luke 24:13-35

On the Road to Emmaus

The Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt
The Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt, 1648Musée du Louvre, Paris · public domain

Overview & Insights

“Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32)

Following the discovery of the empty tomb, Luke’s Gospel records only two occasions (and hints at another one [24:34]) when the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples, both on the evening of Easter day itself, and chapter 24 taken alone would suggest that Jesus’s ascension followed immediately that same night. But Luke will record in Acts 1:3 that in fact Jesus appeared to his disciples frequently over a forty-day period leading up to the ascension, so that the few appearances recorded in his Gospel must be taken as only selected examples. Their interlinking, along with the sequence leading up to the ascension, means that Luke’s postresurrection appearances, unlike those in Matthew and John, occur only in the immediate area of Jerusalem. The return to Galilee (Matt. 28:7, 10, 16–20; Mark 16:7; John 21) falls outside Luke’s deliberately selective scheme.

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What happens on the road to Emmaus?

The risen Jesus walks unrecognized with two disciples, opens the Scriptures to them, and is made known in the breaking of the bread.

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