«Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?»
 Homily for Wednesday of Easter Week 
 Act 3:1-10; Psalm 104; Lk 24:13-35
 
My dear Confreres,
 
The morning after the election of the Rector Major, I have been invited to preside at this eucharist. While I once again express my thanks for your putting your trust in me to continue to carry out the beautiful, but at the same time the demanding ministry of being the Successor of Don Bosco, I thank the Lord for once again entrusting me with the confreres, the Salesian Family and the young people, in order to seek Him in them. I pray that I may carry out as faithfully as possible this service that with gratitude in your presence I entrust to the maternal guidance of Mary Help of Christians. May She be my Mother and Teacher! May She make me strong and humble.

The festive atmosphere of Easter fills with joy our life and the whole world in which so many situations of death are waiting for the light and the hope of the  Resurrection. But not only the world, we Salesians too at this Chapter need to die to apathy, to professionalism, to perfectionalism, to  activism and rise to a new life of what is essential, simple, humble, joyful and enthusiastic following in the footsteps of Don Bosco at the service of the young.
 
The Word of God casts its light on what we are celebrating. During the Easter Octave the Church offers us in the first reading passages from the Acts  of the Apostles in which we read the testimony that the Apostles give to the Resurrection («God raised this man Jesus to life, and all of us are witnesses to that» 2:32), to tell us that you can only speak about the Resurrection in an eloquent and convincing manner if you do so as witnesses to it. The only credible language in which to speak about the new life of the Risen One is the new life of the disciples: if knowing that He is Alive does not raise us up, we cannot speak about Him in  a credible manner. For the Gospel reading during the Easter Octave, the Church chooses the accounts of the appearances of the Risen Lord. These have a twofold purpose. On the one hand these accounts tell us that none of the disciples believed in the resurrection of Jesus, so therefore it wasn’t their invention so that the Cause of Jesus might continue. No, it was the meeting with the Risen Lord – whom they had seen die on the cross and in the silence of God– that changed their unbelief and made them joyful, eloquent, credible witnesses. On the other hand, the accounts of the appearances are meant to show where and how we can have the experience of meeting the Risen Lord, where we can experience the light and the power of his resurrection.
 
See how good the Lord is. Today, in the liturgy of the Word, He offers us the encouragement and the light to achieve the aim of our  General Chapter (in the Gospel) and also gives us a programme for the next six years (1st reading).
 
The first reading in fact records the cure of the cripple by Peter and John showing that the Apostles began to do what Jesus had done. Their mission – the apostolic mission – is that of continuing the mission of Jesus. And the Salesian mission is no different, on behalf of “the young poor, abandoned and at risk”, if we recall article 11 of our Constitutions: “Reading the gospel we become more aware of certain aspects of the figure of the Lord: …. Predilection for the little ones and the poor; zeal in preaching, healing and saving because of the urgency of the coming of the Kingdom …”. In fact, Peter continues the liberating practice of Jesus, not only in proclaiming it but also by miracles, which show that salvation has come to the world. The  miracle will provide another opportunity for an explanation and for further proclamation. Peter too, thanks to the name of Jesus, is seen as «accredited by God by means of miracles, wonders and signs» and therefore authorised to proclaim the newness of the Christian message.

It is a lively account: the temple is still the place of prayer for the first Christian community, which had not yet broken with Jewish customs. In front of one of the more famous entrances, Peter meets a beggar, a cripple from birth, and having “neither silver nor gold” tells him to get up and walk, «in the name Jesus Christ, the Nazarene». What follows is a 'resurrection' narrative: the cripple finally enters the temple – from which his infirmity had excluded him  «walking and jumping and praising God ». He is a man who is physically 'restored', socially rehabilitated and spiritually healed to whom Peter gives back his life. The effects of this cure are enormous: the crowds were all astonished and gathered in numbers at the Portico of Solomon, where Jesus used to discuss with the Jews and where the Christians in Jerusalem met together to listen to the teaching of the Apostles (Acts 5,12). Here Peter immediately begins to explain what had happened. And I ask myself, isn’t this precisely what we are being called to do, so as to become signs of hope for the little ones and the poor, to help them experience the newness of the  Resurrection? Isn’t this perhaps our greatest treasure, “not gold or silver” but the name of Jesus of Nazareth? From this point of view the GC26 will be a veritable kairós for the Congregation, there will be a resurrection, if it makes us more sensitive to poor young people, if it sets us on the way to come to their needs, if we are capable, in addition to curing them and helping them find a place in society and in the Church, of giving Jesus to them so that in Him they may find the meaning and the fullness of life!

If the first reading gives us a programme, so too does the passage from Luke’s gospel, and even more so. The account of the disciples on the way to Emmaus, a real masterpiece from the literary but especially the catechetical point of view, shows us Jesus as a genuine teacher and mystagogue, a catechist who makes himself their travelling companion in order to restore faith and hope to disciples who were discouraged and sad, and so helps us to understand what we ought to do in order to enflame the hearts of the confreres with the passion of “Da mihi animas”. 

Jesus’ meeting with the two disciples so downcast («Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free »), well-informed («You don’t know the things that have been happening these days?») and little evangelised («All about Jesus of Nazareth, who proved he was a great prophet, by the things he said and did in the sight of God and of the whole people »), who even know about the resurrection («Some women from our group have astounded us; they went to the tomb in the early morning, and when they did not find the body, they came back to tell us they had seen as vision  of  angels, who declared he was a live ») but they did not believe, there was a faith journey they had to undertake until «their eyes were opened and they recognised him». Only then did the two disciples become aware that something had happened in their lives and they recovered their joy and enthusiasm, so as to say to each other: “Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road, and explained the scriptures to us?” Therefore “that instant they returned to Jerusalem,” and having found the apostolic community assembled, they began to  evangelise and «they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of the bread.»

Dear confreres, we too can feel like the disciples on the way to Emmaus, downcast, disappointed, even tempted perhaps to give up, or simply settle for what we have, like them knowing  the contents of the Kerygma but without faith or hope, without enthusiasm or conviction, or even the desire to proclaim it or the strength to witness to it. Like them we need to meet the Risen Lord who comes to shake us up and help us get over our doubts, our  uncertainties. («You foolish men! So slow to believe the full message of the prophets»), who comes to explain to us and help us understand the logic of the cross, the language of his Gospel («Was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory?»); who comes to explain the scriptures to us and help us learn to read God’s plan («And starting with Moses and going through all the prophets  he explained to them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about himself »); who comes to stay with us,  indeed to dwell within us and free us from our loneliness. («Stay with us because it is nearly evening and the day is almost over»); who comes to us to sit at table with us and break the bread of his body for us. Only in this way will our hearts take fire again and we shall recover our lost hope, joy and the passion to make our lives full of delight and so propose them as something precious to the young as Don Bosco did to his boys in Valdocco to whom he promised only “bread, work and heaven” and made them responsible with him for his mission: “let’s go halves.”

The road to Emmaus is our road on which to meet the Risen Lord and make our hearts burn. More than a physical road it is a mystagogical process, of a genuine spiritual journey, valid above all today because it shows us our situation: disenchanted people, with a knowledge of Jesus but without an experience of faith, who know the Scriptures but haven’t discovered the Word. Therefore Jerusalem and the apostolic community are left behind and they are back where they started. The road to Emmaus is a pathway that leads from the Scripture to the Word, from the Word to the person of Christ in the Eucharist, and from there back to the community to stay there. There we can see our faith confirmed as we meet the brethren: «Yes it is true. The Lord has risen and appeared to Simon!».
 
The catechesis of Luke is very clear: when a community is ready to listen to the word of God, which is present in the Scriptures, and to put the eucharist at the centre of its life, it gradually arrives at the faith and has an experience of the risen Lord. The word and the eucharist constitute the one great table at which the Church is nourished on its pilgrimage to the Father’s house. Through their experience with Jesus, the disciples of Emmaus understood that the Risen Lord is there where brothers meet together around Simon Peter.
 
The road to Emmaus, dear confreres, is the road to reach the Passion of the “Da mihi animas, cetera tolle”. Let’s follow it, and we shall become travelling catechists like the Lord Jesus. Amen.

Fr Pascual Chávez Villanueva,
General Chapter. Rome – 26 March 2008