The Burning Journey

Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter
4 May 2014

        Put away the TUMS. Get rid of the Prilosec. Throw away the Pepcid. Abandon the Alka-Seltzer.

        I’m speaking spiritually, of course.

        My friends, if we truly desire to be like the first Christians, if we want to be like those two disciples journeying to Emmaus, then we’re going to need to have a perpetual spiritual heartburn.

        “Were not our hearts burning within us?” This is the quintessential question that we must be asking ourselves after every encounter that we have with the Risen Lord. But we also need to alter the question to “Are not our hearts burning within us?” as we encounter Christ resurrected and present in our midst in the here and now.

        And now, still in the dawn of the third millennium, are not our hearts burning as we encounter the same Risen Christ through the Church, Word and Sacrament? Will not our hearts be burning ferociously and with great intensity as we leave this place, going back out into the world, announcing by our lives that Christ is truly risen?

        The journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and back again, is the journey which you and I must make throughout this lifetime; it is the journey which we must make over and over and over and over again. For it is in this journey that we continue to discover and rediscover Christ, and in each discovery, joyfully return to the world to evangelize our environments. It is the journey which continually sets our hearts on fire as followers of Christ.

        Yet the journey and our encounters with Christ often become routine in our lives. We lose the passion for Christ; we lose our focus along the road of salvation. Pope Francis, in speaking to some Italian youth, offers us the following reflection:

“Journeying is an art because if we're always in a hurry, we get tired and don't arrive at our journey's goal … If we stop, we don't go forward and we also miss the goal. Journeying is precisely the art of looking toward the horizon, thinking where I want to go but also enduring the fatigue of the journey, which is sometimes difficult. … There are dark days, even days when we fail, even days when we fall … but always think of this: Don't be afraid of failures. Don't be afraid of falling. What matters in the art of journeying isn't not falling but not staying down. Get up right away and continue going forward. This is what's beautiful: This is working every day, this is journeying as humans. But also, it's bad walking alone: It's bad and boring. Walking in community, with friends, with those who love us, that helps us. It helps us to arrive precisely at that goal, that 'there where' we're supposed to arrive.”

        Sin distorts our vision along the journey. Sin becomes those bumps along the road which causes a pause or detour along the journey. Sin is that agent that deadens our hearts to the stirring of God’s fire within us. Sin is the ultimate spiritual antacid.

        There are many distractions along the journey; we must learn to ignore and avoid them. There are many ways in which the fire in our hearts can become tempered; we must learn to allow our God to stir the embers deep within us, so that the fire is never extinguished.

        The journey may seem long and difficult: Keep going! The fire in our hearts may seem to be too hot at times: Let it burn! We are never alone on the journey: Christ walks with us!, and He gives us a community to journey with. As a member of the Body of Christ, we are never alone; as a member of the Communion of Saints, we are bound to each other as we journey from this life to the next.

        And so, as we journey in the here and now, are not our hearts truly burning as we walk along the way with Jesus Christ and one another? Do we allow our encounters with the Risen Christ through the Church, the Word and Sacrament to once more be the fuel for the fire that burns within each one of us? Do we allow the eyes of our hearts to be open to the presence of Christ in the ordinary and extraordinary moments of our lives?

        Do we journey with and for Christ?

        Do our hearts burn for Him?

        My brothers and sisters, having just opened the Scriptures, we will, in a few moments, break the bread. If our hearts are burning with passionate love for our God, we need to ask Him to re-ignite that which drew us to Him in the first place. If we have fallen in our journey, then we must get up again and keep going.

        In this moment, we should make the words of Saint Augustine of Hippo our own:

“You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.”

        My friends, pursue Christ, encounter Him, burn for Him, and enjoy the journey . . .