Eucharist, source of knowledge of Jesus Christ
Two of Jesus’ disciples went to a village called Emmaus (Luke 24:13). On the way they were approached by Jesus and talked to them but they did not know Him. They knew Him when He sat down to eat with them, He took bread, gave the blessing, then broke it and gave it to them (Luke 24:30). The two disciples experienced again what Jesus did at the Last Supper. That is the holy Eucharist, the offering of Christ himself (His body and blood) for the Church and all people.
Notes on Emmaus (Jost Kokoh – Xxi, Interruption) Emmaus is sometimes referred to as a “hamlet” which is located approximately 11 km from the city of Jerusalem. Often (although not precisely) its location is equated with Emmaus which is mentioned in 1 Mac. 3:40-57; 4:3; 9:50. It was there in 166 BC that Judas Maccabeus’s resistance to foreign rule was victorious. It was in Emmaus, “when Jesus broke the bread” (the Eucharist), that the two disciples were “healed”: they recognized who the person who had accompanied them on the road really was. Only then did they fully realize that this man was the same as He who at the Last Supper (Luke 22:16 and 18) said that He would no longer eat or drink when the Kingdom of God truly came. They both experienced that now “the Divine ” can be truly present in the midst of “humans”, especially through the event of the Eucharist. “Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32).
Emmaus leaves a unique story about Jesus and his two disciples. He left the story of the “breaking of bread” made by the Lord himself. There is a close connection between the events of the last supper and the Emmaus event. The breaking of the bread is a link, that Jesus’ action in Emmaus is the same as the action of the last supper. At the last supper, the Lord himself gave his body and blood to the Apostles. He did the same thing in Emmaus as a repetition, it can even be said as a ‘reminder’. ‘ for the two disciples. This is also an affirmation for the two disciples that the breaking of the bread is typical of Jesus, because He gave His disciples His body and blood. Because it is typical, the disciples recognized Him.
This act of Jesus’ self-surrender is both the source and the peak life of the Church. Christians diverted the Jewish tradition, the custom of gathering at the Temple was now celebrated in each person’s home. “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayer. Persevering and daily with one accord in the temple courts, breaking bread in their homes and eating together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:42.46). And it is true that Christians used to gather “on the first day of the week,” meaning Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, “to break bread” (Acts 20:7). The celebration of the Eucharist continues in the same way today, so that adults here it is found everywhere in the Church with the same basic framework. It remains the core of the Church’s life, (CCC 1343). (Fr. IEF).
