Several years ago, when I was studying at my first seminary, I came into contact with the work of Fr. Henry Nouwen. Through many of his books, he has shared a spirituality that he learned through his time in serving and living with the severely disabled. But what struck me the most, was the story he told of a visit to St. Petersburg and the Hermitage Museum, where he encountered the original of Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son. He described sitting for hours in front of the painting, the details he would observe about the father’s embrace; the rough feet of the son; and downcast eyes of the brother. Everyday during his stay in St. Petersburg, he would go, spending and sit, and meditate. He would even make return trips just to sit in front of this painting. Can you imagine being so struck by an image? How generous was our God in revealing His mysteries to Fr. Nouwen in this one way. How intimate of a friendship and love was this.
He was not alone in this. God has the same desire to reveal Himself to each of us that we each have a painting of the Prodigal Son; a way that He reveals Himself to us in a unique and intimate way that has been chosen for us— so long as our eyes and ears are open to see.
For me, such a Prodigal Son has come through the Road to Emmaus, the account of which we hear this Sunday. When I first arrived at seminary, I didn’t even recognize the name that had been given to our residence hall. I thought Emmaus was a family name for the person who had made a large donation. Then I was asked to give a reflection for my classmates, and the reading that was given to me was this account of the Road to Emmaus. Through a number of other coincidences that year, Emmaus kept coming up, and even long after. When I went on a short retreat after my father died, I was given the one room in the monastery that had a painting of the Road to Emmaus above the bed; it was even the exact painting that I had purchased a few months earlier.
It has seemed that just as Christ came in an unrecognized way to explain the Old Testament, this encounter and image came to me in the same way. How many times I could say the exact same words: Was my heart not burning, yet I did not understand what I was seeing or looking at. Later, I would come to understand the Road to Emmaus as an image of the Spiritual Life, our own journeys from times of fleeing Jerusalem in despair, being fortified by the revelation of Christ, and then returning, strengthened and renewed to share Him with others.
Just as our Lord came to the disciples on the road out of His desire to reveal Himself, so too does He come to each of us to reveal Himself in a most special way.