Wednesday in the Octave of Easter
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“Then Peter took (the crippled man) by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God.” (Acts 3:7-8)
Christ had dinner with the disciples who encountered him on the road to Emmaus, then vanished when they recognized him. “Then they said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?’” (Luke 24:32)
Piety
The road to Emmaus never ends. Jesus, thank you for those flashes of light that guide my continual conversion in your love.
Study
Some of us had life-changing experiences during our Cursillo Weekend as the two disciples did on the road to Emmaus. We found peace with an issue that had been troubling us; we found Christ for the first time in the faces of fellow believers; we found courage and strength in the talks given by team members. Or maybe the Weekend didn’t exactly rock your world, but it was a good experience, and becoming engaged in a group reunion or parish or diocesan Ultreyas feed your soul, and that’s why you’ve stayed engaged enough with Cursillo that you’re reading these words.
Inevitably, though, after the Weekend, something else happens. It might be your moment closest to Christ some week or something you’re reading for study. It might be serving on team or being a sponsor. The “something else” brings you even closer to Christ than you were in the rosy afterglow of the Weekend closing or whatever other moment at which you told yourself, “Wow! I get it now!”
Christ’s continual revealing of the way he works in our lives is the ongoing conversion that Pope Benedict XVI speaks of. We are always changing and, hopefully, always deepening our relationship with Jesus.
The pope put it this way in an interview:
I think this is very important: to recognize that we need an ongoing conversion, that we are simply not there yet. St. Augustine, at the moment of his conversion, thought he had reached the heights of life with God, of the beauty of the sun that is his Word. He then had to understand that the journey after conversion is still a journey of conversion, that it remains a journey where the broad perspectives, joys and lights of the Lord are not absent; but nor are dark valleys absent through which we must wend our way with trust, relying on the goodness of the Lord.
…It is also important of course not to isolate oneself, not to believe one is capable of going ahead alone. …True friends challenge us and help us to be faithful on our journey. It seems to me that this attitude of patience and humility can help us to be kind to others, to understand the weaknesses of others and also help them to forgive as we forgive.
If you haven’t had an Emmaus moment recently, maybe you’re not paying attention. Let us all resolve to be open to the gift of ongoing conversion that keeps our hearts and souls burning.
Action
If you haven’t done so already, send off some palanca and offer up some prayers for the women of the 126th Arlington Women’s Cursillo Weekend that begins tomorrow or for the 116th Men’s Weekend next month. Or, send your sponsor a note of continuing thanks and let him or her know about the latest twists and turns in your ongoing conversion.
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