In the Breaking of the Bread

In the Breaking of the Bread

I had a life-changing experience in August of 1998.  This experience echoed what happened to the two disciples of Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the day of Our Lord’s resurrection. (Lk 24:13-35)

I was on the road, too, not in Palestine but in southern Poland.  It was not just with two disciples but in the company of my good Polish priest friend and 12,000 other people walking from Krakow to the famous shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa.  This walking pilgrimage is a yearly event in Poland.  For me, it was a once-in-a-lifetime walk.

We began our six-day journey from the courtyard of the cathedral on Wawel Hill in Krakow with the celebration of Holy Mass at 6:00 am. Then we were on the road.  As we walked along for those six days, people were chatting why they decided to make the pilgrimage, what intentions they were placing before Our Lady for her intercession, what favors they had already received, what was happening in their families, in their parishes, and in their lives. These conversations mirrored the exchange of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Just as those disciples two thousand years ago spoke from the heart about what was happening in their lives, their fears, their hopes and their experience of the Lord Jesus, so the people on the road to Our Lady at Czestochowa shared so many of the same kinds of happenings and concerns. 

The pilgrims in the smaller group in which I walked were in good spirits.  They were women and men from all walks of life – laborers and professionals, husbands and wives, priests, religious sisters and seminarians.  The youngest was a toddler in a stroller and the oldest was a man who survived the death camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War. All were members of Christ’s Body the Church.  On the faces of these pilgrims were written joys and sorrows, questions and deep thoughts.  You could almost sense the prayers that were welling up from their hearts.

As we walked the roads over the rolling hills of the Polish countryside, we prayed the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.  Hymns new and old rang out to keep us focused on what this walk was all about.  The official “priest chaplain” of the group would read a passage from Sacred Scripture periodically and then offer a short reflection or mini sermon on its meaning for us.  I did that myself with the aid of a translator. 

It reminded me of the Risen Lord Jesus walking along the road to Emmaus with His two disciples and explaining to them the meaning of the Scriptures beginning with Moses and the prophets that foretold His coming as man and His mission to bring salvation to the world.  Just as the two disciples did not recognize Him for who He was, so we, too, on our pilgrims’ way did not always see how He was working in our lives nor understand completely what He was saying to us. 

In the Emmaus story, the two disciples invited Jesus to stay with them in the village they were approaching.  As they went inside, He sat down with them.   He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  When He did this, they recognized Him as Jesus. Then He vanished out of their sight.  He had not given them mere bread but bread that had become His Body. Scriptures say that the disciples said to each other: “Did not our hearts burn within us when he talked to us on the road?”  

They then got up and immediately returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven apostles gathered together.  The eleven and others who were with them proclaimed. “The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.” The two who had just returned from the walk to Emmaus told them what had happened to them on the road and how they recognized Jesus when he broke bread.   

Our walk to Czestochowa was the same experience.  We heard Jesus’s voice and encountered Him in the proclamation of the Scriptures.  We knew He was walking along with us during those beautiful sunny days over hills and through villages in the Polish countryside.  Each morning, in a field or in a forest meadow, we encountered Jesus in the Eucharist when the Sacrifice of the Mass was offered. At every Mass, whether it be in the grandest of cathedrals or in the humblest of chapels, Christ offers Himself to the Father as a redemptive sacrifice and then to each of us in an intimate encounter of love.

This awesome experience is not limited to a small village in Palestine along the road to Emmaus two thousand years ago.  It is not limited to the wonderful walking pilgrimage to Czestochowa.  It is not limited to only one place or time.  Every time Holy Mass is celebrated, we hear His voice and we recognize Him as truly present.

Our life is a journey, a pilgrimage.  Through good times and bad, through joys and sorrows, through prayers of pleading and prayers of thanksgiving, we travel on.  We know that we never walk alone.  The Lord Jesus is always with us.  He speaks to us of His plan for our salvation and the love we must have for one another and all people. 

Sometimes we feel His presence and hear His voice more clearly than others.  But then we come to Mass, to His Altar of Sacrifice, to His Paschal Banquet spread out for us. There we hear His voice and feel His presence in the proclamation of the Scriptures.   At Mass He shows us His wounds by which we are healed.  There we encounter Him in a way the most real way when we receive His very Body and His Blood in Holy Communion.  It’s the most profound experience of His love that we will have in this world.
Indeed, life is a journey worth taking. 

Sometimes it is a difficult road to walk.  We know in faith that on our pilgrim way, Mass is an experience we cannot live without.  There His mercy is poured out upon us.  There we encounter Him and recognize Him in the Breaking of the Bread, in His Body and Blood truly given to us. There we are most truly and firmly united one to another in His Mystical Body the Church.  Thank You, Jesus, for this great Gift of Yourself as Food for our pilgrim way!

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh