Recognized at the breaking of bread

The text in the Roman Catholic Lectionary today from the Gospel of Luke is often used as the Gospel reading for Mass in the evening on Easter Sunday. The proclamation of Christians that "Truly, He is risen" still can be heard at that time. We are encouraged to see Christ in all people. The indwelling Spirit reveals the kinship we have as brothers and sisters of Christ. This intimacy is the desire of God expressed in the Passion and Resurrection. Christians gather and the Body of Christ is Present as the two or three gathered in my Name (Matthew 18:20). The presider of the assembly stands in "persona Christi" and acts for Jesus in the assembly. The Eucharistic Presence which Jesus offers believers during the celebration is being re-present in the Upper Room of His Passover as He gives us His blood to drink and His flesh to eat. Jesus preached in Capernaum that "those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them" (John6:56). The faith of Peter demonstrated in the passage from the Acts of the Apostles that God transcends the limits of our temporal and finite existence is one gift offered in the intimacy of His Body and ours which gives us the insight of the Emmaus disciples that "they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread" (Luke 24:35). We look to those around us and we proclaim again "Truly, He is risen"