[00:00] In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen Today is the Wednesday of the octave of Easter, in which the Church celebrates during this octave, each day as if it were Easter Sunday. It is a time of great joy for us to be renewed in our love and faith in the risen Christ and the victory that we are all called to share in. And this Gospel is particularly beautiful to reflect upon, and of course it falls within

[00:38] the time frame of this historical event, as they were walking, as these two disciples were walking. Jesus joins them, and they are downcast, they are downcast and have lost their hope. But when Jesus joins them, their hope is restored and renewed, as He explains to them all that had been prophesied of Him by the prophets, that the Christ must suffer and enter into His glory.

[01:13] And the Gospel clearly says that they did not really understand what had taken place when they said, "We had hope, that we were hoping that He was the one to redeem Israel." They had lost their hope in Christ, so great was the event of Christ's crucifixion and death that they had lost hope. But Jesus restores that hope to them and gives them renewed hope.

[01:46] And this is important because we must remember this chapter as we go through the journey of our life, as we are on a journey with Christ, and many times, perhaps we also get discouraged. We become discouraged and lose hope, and because of trials or difficulties or things that we encounter in life, that we lose sight of Jesus walking with us. We lose sight of Jesus' presence with us. We lose sight of Jesus. And so it's just to remind ourselves that we too are on a journey as these two disciples

[02:18] were, and that we must remember that Christ is walking with us, and that we must keep our eyes firmly fixed upon Him, that our hope may always be constant in Him, that we may never lose hope as we remember that no matter what we face in life or go through, Christ is with us and will help us through it, and that our faith in Him must always have a strong foundation as this Easter season reminds us.

[02:51] The Gospel also has some very important points to reflect upon, and when did they recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread? They recognized Him in the Holy Eucharist. It's very clear that it's repeated twice, actually. He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread, that Christ gave them the Holy Eucharist, and He blessed the bread and gave Himself in the Holy Eucharist, and they recognized Him in the Holy Eucharist, renewing and restoring, renewing our faith in Christ's real presence

[03:23] in the Holy Eucharist. And so the Gospel is very beautiful because it shows as we are on this journey of life, we are on a long journey to our homeland in heaven, we also need that strength. We also need to be renewed and restored and assisted to continue this journey, and the food that Jesus gives us is Himself, in His body, blood, soul, and divinity, the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Eucharist. And finally, one of my favorite parts of this Gospel are the words that these disciples

[03:58] say, "Stay with us, stay with us," that we want Jesus to always stay with us, but also we want to stay with Him, that we want to be faithful and follow Jesus, and we don't want to turn aside from Him or to choose sin over Him. We want to stay with Jesus so that He will always stay with us. I love this word because it's to remind us, we can say this throughout the day, "Jesus, stay with me, Jesus, be near to me, Jesus, be close to me," and help me to stay with You

[04:32] always. May our Blessed Mother help us to continue to reflect upon the joys of this Easter octave, that our faith in Christ may be ever, ever increased and renewed as we continue to follow Him on the road that He leads us on to our true home in heaven. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.