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.
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