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In today’s Gospel the song of trouble and heartbreak is about to erupt in the life of Jesus. Here, in His final conversation with His disciples, Jesus seeks to strengthen his friends in the face of the coming darkness. Very soon His own heart will be greatly troubled, as He prays in the garden of Gethsemane, knowing that His enemies are closing in. Nobody escapes trouble and heartbreak. Nobody escapes from fear. And yet there is a way out of these dark places. That heavenly place is the presence of God, and Jesus now tells us how to find our way. As His disciples are thrown into confusion, they begin to ask Him questions. Two very important questions emerge: “Lord, where are You going?” and “How can we find the way there?” He is going to God, His Father, and in following Jesus we will find our way there too.

Trouble and heartache come to everyone in this world, and in many different guises. There are issues of injustice, where people do not receive their share of bread in this world; issues of violence, where people’s lives are torn apart by bloodshed, issues of human relationship; issues of bereavement, where people suddenly lose the ones they love. The word of Jesus, spoken first to His disciples at the Last Supper, are repeated to us today: “Do not let your heart be troubled.” The Lord himself is the reason why we are not to lose hope. Today we hear what St. Peter has to say about the importance of others, about the importance of the Church. The Lord is a living stone, and we can set ourselves close to Him. It is only by being set next to one another in the Lord that we can be strong. It is this precious love in our lives that will enable us to have a care for one another, and as a Church to have a care for everyone. To rescue the human heart from trouble is the great work that we can do.

They…recognized Him at the breaking of bread. Twe depressed, half-believeing disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized the risen Lord in a setting with which you and I are instantly familiar. We are tempted to say, “There is something magic about the Mass,” but that is not right: magic has no place in Christianity. When we first met them in today’s Gospel, these two travellers on the road to Emmaus could not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. They had been His followers, and that made it worse. Jesus had to spend the whole day walking with them, explaining the psalms and prophecies of the Old Testament, to prepare them for the blinding moment of recognition.

As soon as they recognized the risen Lord, They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. Their joy was so great that it couldn’t wait till morning. They ran the seven miles back to the city to bring the stunning news. Jesus is alive. Their depression was lifted, their despair had disappeared. If Christ is risen, all things can be hoped for. As men and women of trust, we are oddballs in our secular world, which is grim, sarcastic, sad, expecting the worst, pooh-poohing virtue and unselfishness. We are the opposite. We can bring each day with hope in our heart, because we know that the risen Christ is with us, helping us interpret everything that may happen, casting His light on every encounter, every problem.

Every Sunday at Mass we proclaim the Creed – the “I believe”. The word “creed” comes from the Latin word “credo”, meaning “I believe”; and the word “believe” derives ultimately from a word related to “love”. When we pray the Creed, when we say we believe, we are making a statement about the person in whom we trust, the one to whom we have given our hearts – just as Thomas did. “The truth is out there.” For the Christians, the truth of the resurrection will never be proved or disproved by scientific reasoning of historical data, but by the effects of that truth in our world and in our personal lives. The first reading gives an indication of some of those effects: a faithfulness to the teaching of the apostles, to the community, to the breaking of bread, to prayer. Perhaps most importantly, the real hallmarks of the risen Jesus are the peace and joy, the healing and reconciliation that this Spirit brings into people’s lives – driving out fear and sadness, overcoming the death-dealing power of sin. This is the real sign of the resurrestion, the truth that we are called to live out and embody, for the healing and salvation of the world.