Homily 23

Pronounced before the people

in the basilica of Blessed Peter, apostle,

the day after Easter

April 16, 591

The apparition to the disciples of Emmaus

The day after Easter, the audience is more sparse, but also more fervent. St. Gregory thus alleviates his usual speech. He dispenses with a detailed exegetical commentary. The long gospel in which Christ makes himself known to the disciples of Emmaus, gives him the opportunity to sing the praises of the great virtue of hospitality.

These two disciples loved Jesus: he offers them his presence. They doubted him; he did not allow himself to be recognized. They offer him hospitality, and he reveals to them his identity at the breaking of the bread. It is not by hearing the commandments of God that they are enlightened, but by putting them into practice. To understand more, let's start by putting into practice what we have already understood. Let us love hospitality, by which we give shelter to Christ hidden in the traveler, as it actually happened to a good father, whose preacher tells the story.

Faithful to his habit, he concludes on the perspective of the last judgment: "Behold, the Lord coming for judgment will say, 'What you did to one of the least of mine, it is to me that you have done it. "Capital phrase to appreciate the action and thought of the holy pope. Fascinated by the coming of the Judge and the imminence of the end of the world, he does not move away from the century, and continues relentlessly his multifaceted social action. Some historians are surprised that the eschatological tension does not push him to lose interest in the things of the earth. Gregory asks only to explain to them this apparent paradox. The world is nearing its end. Therefore, we must despise all that he has proposed for us, and distance ourselves from the powerful of the hour, destined to disappear. However, the end of the world will bring the coming of our Judge, who will consider all that we have done for our brothers as if we had done for him. It is therefore the very approach of what he believes to be the end of the world that commits the pope to social action.

Lk 24, 13-35

At that time, two disciples of Jesus were going that day to a village called Emmaus, sixty stades from Jerusalem, and they were talking to each other about everything that had happened. While they were talking, exchanging their thoughts, Jesus himself, approaching, set out with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He said to them, "What are you talking about as you walk, how sad you are?" One of them, named Cleophas, answered him, "You are the only one who passes through Jerusalem not to know what you are doing. who has arrived there these days. "He said to them," What then? "They answered," That which concerns Jesus of Nazareth, who was a powerful prophet in works and words before God and before all the people. And how did the high priests and our leaders deliver him to be condemned to death and crucified him? As for us, we hoped that it would be him who would deliver Israel, but with all that, it is today the third day that these things happened. However, some of the women who are with us scared us: before the day, they went to the tomb, and not having found her body, they came to say that they had seen angels, who have claimed he was alive. Some of our men went to the tomb and found all things as the women had said; but he did not find it. "Then Jesus said to them," O men without understanding, whose heart is slow to believe all that the prophets have announced! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer thus to enter his glory? "Then, beginning with Moses and going through the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the passages that concerned him.

They were approaching the village to where they were going. And he pretended to go further. But they pressed him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is getting late, and already the day is falling." And he went in with them. And while he was eating with them, he took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes opened and they recognized him, but he became invisible to them. And they said one to another, "Was not our heart all burning within us, while He spoke to us on the way, and explained to us the Scriptures?" At that very hour, they returned to Jerusalem, where they found the Eleven and their companions together, who said to them, "The Lord is risen, and appeared to Simon." They themselves told what had happened on the way, and how they had recognized him at the breaking of the bread.

For you who take the trouble to participate in the festivals of each day, it is not appropriate to say many; and the little that I say will perhaps be more useful, because it often happens that we eat as much better appetite as food is served in less quantity. I therefore resolved to give you the general meaning of the gospel read to you, without following it word by word, so as not to risk being dependent on your charity by an interminable explanation of the text.

You have just heard it, dear brothers: to the two disciples who were walking on the road and who, while not believing in him, yet spoke of him, the Lord appeared, without showing himself to them in a form that they could recognize. So the Lord realized on the outside, in the eyes of the body, what was in them within, in the eyes of the heart. Within themselves, the disciples loved and doubted all at once; on the outside, the Lord was present to them without however manifesting who He was. To those who spoke of him, he offered his presence; but to those who doubted him, he hid his familiar aspect, which would have enabled them to recognize him. He exchanged a few words with them, reproached them with their slowness in understanding, explained to them the mysteries of Holy Scripture concerning him, and yet, their hearts remaining foreign to him for lack of faith, he pretended to go further. Feindre [Fingere] can also mean [in Latin] modeling; that's why we call potters' clay modelers [Figuli]. Truth, which is simple, did not do anything with duplicity, but it simply manifested itself to the disciples in its body as it was in their minds.

It was necessary to test them to see if, not yet loving him as God, they were at least capable of loving him as a traveler. Truth journeying with them, they could not remain strangers to love: they offered him hospitality, as one does for a traveler. Why, moreover, do we say that they proposed to him, as it is written in our gospel, "They pressed him." This example shows us that we should not only offer hospitality to travelers, but to accept it.

The disciples set the table, offer food; and God, whom they did not recognize in the explanation of Holy Scripture, they recognize it in the breaking of bread.

2. It is not by hearing the commandments of God that they have been enlightened, but by putting them into practice. Is it not written, "It is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who practice it will be justified" (Rom 2: 13). Thus, whoever wants to understand what he has heard must hasten to accomplish with his works what he has already managed to understand. As you can see, the Lord was not recognized when he spoke, but he deigned to be recognized when he was given food. Love, dear brothers, hospitality, love works inspired by charity. Paul says, "Let fraternal charity dwell in you, and beware of forgetting hospitality. For it is through her that some have made themselves acceptable to God by hosting angels. "

(Heb 13, 1-2). Peter says, "Be hospitable to one another without complaining." (1 Pet 4: 9). And the Truth itself declares, "I was a stranger, and you received me." (Mt 25:35)

Here is a well-known story, which the story of our elders has passed on to us. A father and all his household practiced hospitality with great zeal, receiving daily travelers at their table. Now it happened that one day a traveler coming among others was brought to the table. And as the father of the family wanted, according to a custom full of humility, to pour water on the hands of his host, having turned around, he took the jug, but found no more, the next moment, the one on whose hands he wanted to pour the water. While he was admiring the thing to himself, the same night, the Lord told him in a vision: "The other days, you received me in my members, but yesterday, it was me in person that you received . "

Behold, the Lord coming for judgment will say, "What you did to one of the least of mine, you did it to me" (Mt 25:40). Now, before this judgment, when it is received in its members, it visits by itself those who receive it. And we are so lukewarm to practice hospitality! Consider, my brethren, what great virtue is hospitality. Receive Christ at your tables, to deserve to be received by him at the eternal banquet. Give shelter today to Christ who presents himself to you as a stranger, so that in the day of judgment you are not for him as strangers whom he does not know (cf Lk 13:25), but that he receives you as his own in his Kingdom. May he help us to achieve this, who, being God, lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.