The Journey of Faith
Your walk with God.
The Road to Emmaus
“And behold, on that very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, which was sixty stadia from Jerusalem.
And they were talking with each other about all these things which had taken place. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.
And He said to them, “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?”
And they came to a stop, looking sad. One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, “Are You possibly the only one living near Jerusalem who does not know about the things that happened here in these days?”
And He said to them, “What sort of things?”
And they said to Him, “Those about Jesus the Nazarene, who proved to be a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers handed Him over to be sentenced to death, and crucified Him.
But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.
But also some women among us left us bewildered. When they were at the tomb early in the morning, and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive. And so some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”
And then He said to them, “You foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to come into His glory?”
Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures.”
Each of us is on our own journey of faith, on our own road to Emmaus. Some of us are at the beginning of that road. Some of us are a bit further down it. Some of us are hopelessly lost. The good thing is that, like in the gospel reading, Jesus meets us where we are at and walks with us along the way. He will reveal himself to us as much as we are ready to receive him. He will reveal himself to us in as much as we seek his presence. You are not on this journey alone. We, the Church, will walk this road with you to lead and guide you along the way.
“When a large crowd gathered, with people from one town after another journeying to Jesus, he spoke in a parable.
"A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled,
and the birds of the sky ate it up.
Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture.
Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it.
And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold.“
After saying this, he called out, "Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear."
The seed that this parable talks about is the word of God. The gospel of salvation has been spread to every corner of the earth. You have heard about this gospel and you are curious to know more about it or you wouldn’t be here right now. But the true meaning of the seed goes much deeper than just a belief in Jesus. At its core, the seed is your relationship with God. Our hearts are the soil in which this seed has been sown. God put this seed into our hearts even before time began. He so loves you and wants to be in relationship with you that he created you out of nothing and brought you into this world. Your curiosity about Christianity has caused the seed within you to germinate and start growing.
“Some seed fell beside the road and the birds came and ate it up.”
For some of you, the invitation to relationship will fall on the path but be eaten up by the birds. In other words, you will reject the invitation to have a relationship with God. You will replace the love of God for love of self. If you make it through to the end of class and get your OCIA certificate you may never darken the doorstep of a church again. That is tragic and our hope would be that you will return to the faith at another point in your life when you are ready to have the most important relationship you will ever have.
“Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and they sprang up immediately, because they had no depth of soil. But after the sun rose, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.”
This is not an uncommon event, especially among new Christians. People come out of programs like OCIA or some sort of retreat or program and they are fired up about the faith. Often times they will jump in with both feet too quickly. It isn’t long before the fire they got from the program begins to wane and they start to lose interest. They start making excuses for not coming to Mass until one day they just stop altogether. Fires need to be constantly fed to continue to burn. The more you feed a fire the more it thrives and grows.
“Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it.”
Our jails and prisons are full of repeat offenders. Someone getting out of prison has a high likelihood of ending back up in prison again at some point in their life. The reason for this is that they return to the same life they had before they went in. Being around the same people and the same circumstances will usually lead to the same poor decisions.
Christians are a people consecrated to God, that is, we are a people set apart for God. We have to live in the world but we are not to be of this world. Being of this world means to be surrounded by thorns. Thorns are the things or people that lead us away from a life with God. In the military we have a saying. You perform the way you train. If you want your faith to grow and you want to grow closer to God, you must surround yourself with things that lead to God. For many of us, this means changing our way of life. We have to give up things that the world believes are OK but our faith teaches are not.
“But others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty times as much. The one who has ears, let him hear.”
Your relationship with God is the most important relationship you will ever have. The more you nurture this relationship and allow it to grow within you the more God can do with your life. Let your heart be good soil that the Lord can use to bring about a bountiful crop.
God created us to be in a relationship with him and with each other. What does a relationship with God look like? On the vertical level, we have to realize that there is a God and we aren’t him. God is not our equal. This means that we have to have reverence for our God. We must honor and worship him. If we love him, we will obey him.
When God made man, man was sad and lonely. God was above him. The animals were below him. Man had no equal. So, God created woman to be an equal companion for man. As man and woman grew in their relationship with each other their relationship with God began to suffer. This eventually led them to sever their relationship with God completely and they were cast out of the Garden of Eden. But God never gave up on his relationship with us. Because we could not relate to God because he was so much higher than us, he did the only thing he could do. God became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.
On the horizontal level Jesus came to show us how to live in right relationship with God and to restore the relationship we once had. Because he was human, he could relate to us as an equal and because he was divine, he could also relate to the Father as an equal.
God has revealed himself to us as Father so we would know how we are to relate to him. We are to love, honor, respect, and obey our fathers. Jesus is like an older brother who has the perfect relationship with the Father. He shows us the way. He is our example we are called to imitate. He leads us back to the relationship that once was lost.
Your journey of faith therefore is you establishing a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus leads us to heaven. Jesus leads us home to the Father. You develop this relationship the same way you develop every relationship you will ever have with another person.
It all begins with spending time with him. This is time you spend with him in prayer, adoration, worship, and in silence. If all you do is come to Mass for forty-five minutes a week you will never develop a strong relationship with God.
Think about when you are starting to fall in love with someone. You want to spend as much time as you can with that person. It doesn’t matter what you are doing. You don’t have to talk, you don’t have to do anything. You just need to be with each other.
There is a concept often attributed to Einstein that goes, “If you place your hand on a hot stove for a minute it seems like an hour. When you spend an hour with the one you love it seems like a minute.”
Start spending more time with the Lord. Start with simple prayer, even if just for ten minutes a day. Get a Catholic prayer book and start with some of the formal prayers, like the prayer before meals, the morning offering, or even just a Lord’s prayer. As this becomes habit add more prayers throughout your day. The more time you spend with the Lord, the deeper your love will grow for him. In this case quantity time is better than quality time for every second spent with the Lord is quality time.
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