Happy Friday of the second week of Easter, Everybody! This Little Triduum, encompassing the upcoming third Sunday of Easter, offers us a great lens through which to see why we so often don’t see. The Gospel is Luke 24 13-35 and you can read it here:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041926.cfm

It tells the story of Jesus’ meeting two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. The disciples had been conversing and debating when he met up with them. This activity did not prepare their vision to recognize the Risen Lord. Even after he – Jesus Himself -- essentially ended their conversation and settled their debate, they did not recognize him.

It took Holy Communion.

In 2026, we are battered by “conversations” and “debates”— technologically tailored to our enduring, fallen, desire for gladiatorial blood sports, rather than a virtuous pursuit of the truth. But, unlike Cleopas and the unnamed disciple walking with him, we are not even participants in those conversations and debates! We are mere spectators! How in the world do we expect that anyone in such an environment might recognize, much less follow, Jesus?

He shows the disciples, and us, that he can only be known in worship. And that worship is fundamentally not about words, it is fundamentally about our Eucharistic Lord’s gift of Himself in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Today, this second Friday of Easter, is a great day to avert our eyes from the omnipresent spectacle of our imminent brokenness, within its high-definition disguise of conversation and debate, and allow the Eternal Word to bestow the peace-filled vision of Himself on us in the breaking of the bread.