Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 8 May 2011

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

The disciples were going over and over again in their mind what had happened. They had seen Jesus crucified and his body taken down from the cross and entombed. All their hopes had been shattered. As for this report they had heard, saying that his body was no longer there, they did not know what to make of it. Let's face it, they were so like us. We are worried because life does not work out like we expect. There are disappointments and difficulties. We feel even as people of faith that we are putting the clues together, trying to make sense of it all.

We are told that they were walking away from Jerusalem. In scripture the holy city often stands for the Church. Sometimes pilgrims to the real life Jerusalem today can be disappointed. All that noise, all the hustling to buy and sell, the division between different religions and for that matter the divisions between Christians - what a disappointment. When I lead pilgrimages to the Holy Land I warn people that the Holy Sepulchre can sometimes seem to have the spiritual atmosphere of a branch of Tesco. So, too, the Church today can disappoint. It reflects human frailties. It does not live up to its promises. In the gospel today the disciples are walking away from the holy city and leaving behind their broken dreams. So, too, in our own day good people can be disappointed by the reality of Church. But if they are seeking the perfect Church, they will never find it. Moreover, if they leave, will they be able to recognise Christ when he is among them? To walk away from the Eucharist would be to lose that moment of intuition when time after time, in a way beyond words, we know that Christ is among us.

The Church is a great company of many sinners and some saints. It is to us imperfect people that Christ comes in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. If we were unfailingly holy, always governed by spiritual things, never making errors of judgement, perhaps we would not need the eucharist so much. But we are people who can be frail, unwise and selfish. Precisely because we are like that we need to stay with the Church. We will find plenty of others like ourselves. To us in our confusion, our yearning and our broken dreams Christ comes in the communion that we share.

We who belong to the Catholic Church do not claim to be perfect. We do claim to know this mystery which is so often beyond words, that in the Mass we find ourselves spiritually nourished. We draw close to him who is the source of life and love. Somehow, coming to the Eucharistic table gives us hope, encouragement, faith; it challenges us to love. We are fed by Christ and through Christ. He is our unity and our peace. Perhaps he is closest to us even when it feels that he is far away. Those disciples walking to Emmaus must have felt that the presence of the beloved Lord was gone for ever. Yet even as they thought that, he was there, right next to them. So, too, when we journey in uncertainty, we need to remember that Christ is there. In his graciousness and humility he walks at our side, even if we do not recognise him. But we may be sure of this: if we continue with the fellowship in the breaking of the bread, sooner or later our eyes will be opened and we will know once more that he is with us.

Fr Terry is Parish Priest at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Brook Green, west London. His latest book: Ronald Knox and English Catholicism is published by Gracewing at £12.99 and is available on Amazon, on ICN's front page. To read Sr Gemma Simmonds' review on ICN see: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=16114