When It Really Counts

“But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel…” These were the words of two disappointed and perplexed disciples of Jesus as they made their way from Jerusalem to a nearby town called Emmaus just a few days after Jesus had been put to death. They express so often what we, today’s disciples of Christ, experience. Let me try to explain what I mean.

I had the marvelous privilege of being able to take my annual spiritual retreat the week immediately following Easter Sunday. It was for sure a blessed experience. Every time I do one of these retreats which are typically in silence and require a significant amount of prayer throughout the day, there is always a period of time which usually occurs during the middle of the week where I a begin to get antsy, prayer becomes distracted and difficult, and I begin to be tempted to doubt that God has been acting at all on the retreat and to give up hope that things are going to get any better. The temptation is ultimately to give up, to quit the retreat.

This is precisely the period of time on retreat in which you really need to beg the Lord for deep trust in Him and surrender your fears to Him. All of this is often best done through simple and short prayers such as “Jesus, I trust in you” and/or “Lord, I surrender my fear to you” and/or “Thank you, Lord, for your love for me”… A friend of mine calls these “dagger prayers” because they are like little daggers that we strike our Enemy with who is trying to discourage us. If you continue to keep ‘walking’ forward on the retreat, you soon discover as I did that Jesus has never abandoned you but through the trial is only seeking to bring you deeper into trusting friendship with Him.

All this maps on so well to our common experience in our spiritual lives, and it is displayed in our Gospel for this weekend. Hear the words again of those two disciples on their way to Emmaus which I wrote above, “But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel...” As with my retreat experience there was a certain expectation on the part of these disciples that God was going to act in a specific way through Jesus but when He didn’t disappointment and temptation came: “But we were hoping…” Again, this is precisely the moment when a new foundation of trust in God must be laid. 

The surprising and ever-refreshing news is that it is Jesus Himself who lays this new foundation of trust by drawing near to us in these moments. If you re-read the account of the Gospel for today, you’ll notice that the words of discouragement that were uttered by the disciples of Jesus weren’t uttered to one another but rather to Jesus who had drawn near to them and was asking them about their conversation. However, the disciples didn’t recognize Him as Jesus. He seemingly chose to not allow them to see Him clearly so as to best set them up for the new foundation of trust He was planning to lay for them.

It is now the third Sunday of Easter, and it has been just over one month since we were able to publicly gather for the celebration of the Holy Mass. Perhaps at this point you are going through your own period of spiritually fatigue. Maybe, you are tempted toward discouragement or a sense of isolation and you think that this moment of trial will never end. My dear friends in Christ, I share with you the frustration, disappointment, and sadness of these times. It is ok to feel these things.

We must, however, know that Jesus is drawing near to us. He wants to lay in our hearts a deeper foundation of trust in Him so that our life of faith can be that much more secure. Remain steadfast in your prayer. Don’t stop! This very grace of trust that Jesus wants to give to you depends on you not giving up.

So, I say to again, and I encourage you to continue to say to each other, Happy Easter! Jesus Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!

With paternal love,

Fr. Stiles