Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?
– Luke 24:32, from today’s Gospel
The Emmaus story is one of the best-known and best-loved Resurrection appearances — especially because of the connection it makes between Eucharist and the risen Christ: “and they recognized him in the breaking of the bread.”
Yet once they do recognize him, they re-interpret their earlier experience, able now to recognize how their hearts had already been burning during their conversation with him.
Where has my own heart been burning? How am I called to recognize it? (Perhaps this would be something to pray with at Mass, after receiving the Eucharist.)