The Disciples Going to Emmaus. Jesus Appears to the Apostles in the Hall of the Last Supper
Luke had been among the disciples only a short time, but he had, before
joining them, received John’s baptism. He was present at the love feast
and the instruction upon the Blessed Sacrament delivered by Matthew in
the evening at Lazarus’, in Bethania. After the instruction
he went,
troubled and doubting, to Jerusalem where he spent the night in John
Mark’s house.
There he met several other disciples, among them
Cleophas, a grandson of Mary Cleophas’ paternal uncle. He had been at
the instructions and the love feast given in the house of the Last
Supper. The disciples were talking about Jesus’ Resurrection and
expressing their doubts. Luke and Cleophas, especially, were wavering in
faith. As, moreover, the commands of the High Priests were again made
known, that no one should harbor the disciples of Jesus or supply them
with food, both resolved to go together to Emmaus. They left the
assembly. On leaving John Mark’s house, one turned to the right and went
around out of the city in a northerly direction, and the other took a
route on the opposite side, as if not wishing to be seen together. One
went straight out of the city, the other made his way between the walls
and out by the gate, beyond which they again met upon a hill. They
carried each a staff, and a bundle at his side. Luke had a leathern
pocket. I saw him frequently stepping aside from the road and gathering
herbs.
Luke had not seen the Lord during those last days, and had
not been present at His instructions at Lazarus’. He had been more in
the disciples’ inn at Bethania and with the disciples in Machaerus. He
had not long been a declared disciple, though he had always gone around
with the rest and was very desirous of knowing what was going on.
I
felt that both these disciples were anxious and doubting, and that they
wanted to talk over all they had heard. They were especially put out at
the Lord’s being so ignominiously crucified! They could not understand
how the Redeemer and Messiah could have been so shamefully ill-treated.
About the middle of their journey, Jesus drew near to them from a side
path. As soon as they saw Him, they went more slowly, as if wanting to
let the stranger go on ahead, as if fearing to be overheard. But Jesus
likewise slackened His pace, and stepped out on the road only after they
were somewhat in advance. I saw Him walking behind them for a little
while, then drawing near and asking of what they were talking.
Where
the road branched off outside of Emmaus (a pretty, clean little place)
Jesus appeared as if He wanted to take that which ran southward to
Bethlehem. But the two disciples constrained Him to go with them into a
house that stood in the second row of the city. There were no women in
it, and it appeared to me to be a public house, for it looked as if a
feast had lately been held in it. Some signs of it were still to be
seen. The room was quadrangular and very neat. The table was covered,
and reclining cushions lay around it, of the same kind as those used at
the love feast on Easter day. A man put on it a honeycomb in a woven
basket-like vessel, a large, four cornered cake, and a small, thin,
almost transparent Passover loaf. This last was set before the Lord as
being the guest. The man that put the cake on the table appeared to be
good, and he wore an apron, as if he were a cook or a steward. He was
not present at the solemn breaking of the Bread. The cake was marked by
lines, the spaces between them being about two fingers wide. A knife was
lying on the table. It was white, as if made of stone or bone, not
straight, but bent crooked, and only as large as one of our large
blades. Before eating the bread, they notched along the lines with the
sharp edge of the knife, which edge was only at the point. For this
reason they had to hold it near the point. The morsel previously notched
they then broke off.
Jesus reclined at the table with the two
disciples and ate with them of the cake and honey. Then taking the small
cake, the ribbed one, He broke off a piece that He afterward divided
into three with the short, white bone knife. These He laid on the little
plate, and blessed. Then He stood up, elevated the plate on high with
both hands, raised His eyes, and prayed. The two disciples stood
opposite Him, both intensely moved, and as it were transported out of
themselves. When Jesus broke the little pieces, they opened their mouth
and stretched forward toward Him. He reached His hand across the table
and laid the particle in their mouth. I saw that as He raised His hand
with the third morsel to His own mouth, He disappeared. I cannot say
that He really received it. The morsels shone with light after He had
blessed them. I saw the two disciples standing a little while as if
stupefied, and then casting themselves with tears of emotion into each
other’s arms.
This vision was especially touching on account of the
Lord’s mild and loving manner, the calm joy of the two disciples even
before they knew Him, and their rapture as soon as they recognized Him
and after He had disappeared. Cleophas and Luke hurried back at once to
Jerusalem.
On the evening of the same day, many of the disciples and all the Apostles excepting Thomas assembled with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea in the hall of the Last Supper, the doors being closed. They stood ranged in a triple circle under the lamp that hung from the center of the ceiling, and prayed. They seemed to be engaged in some after-celebration of mourning or thanksgiving, for the Paschal solemnities ended today in Jerusalem. All wore long white garments. Peter, John, and James the Less were vested in robes that distinguished them from the rest, and they held rolls of writing in their hands. Around their white, flowing garment, which was somewhat longer behind than before, they wore a girdle more than a hand in breadth. From it depended to below the knees scalloped strips, black like the girdle, and covered with large white letters. The girdle was knotted in the back, the ends crossing and reaching as low down as the strips in front. The sleeves were very wide, and one served as a pocket in which the prayer rolls could be stuck. Above the elbow of the left arm hung a broad maniple tripped with tassels of the same color and embroidered in the same way as the girdle. Peter wore a stole around his neck. It was broader from the shoulders down than it was around the neck, and was crossed and fastened on the breast with a little blank shield in the form of a heart and ornamented with stones. The two other Apostles wore their stoles crossed under the arm, and had shorter strips to their girdles. When in prayer, all laid their hands crosswise on their breast. The Apostles occupied the inner circle under the lamp; the two others were formed by the disciples. Peter, between John and James, stood with his back turned to the closed entrance of the house of the Last Supper; two only were behind him, and the circle was not closed in front of him, but open toward the Holy of Holies.
The Blessed Virgin was, during
the whole celebration, with Mary Cleophas and Magdalen in the hall
outside, which opened into the supper room. Peter preached at intervals
during the prayers.
I was surprised to see that although Jesus had
appeared to Peter, John, and James, yet the greater number of the
Apostles and disciples would not fully believe in His Resurrection. They
still felt uneasy, as if His apparition was not a real and corporeal
one, only a vision, a phantom, similar to those the Prophets had had.
All had ranged again for prayer after Peter’s instruction when Luke and
Cleophas, hurrying back from Emmaus, knocked at the closed doors of the
courtyard and received admittance. The joyful news they related
somewhat interrupted the prayer. But scarcely was it again continued
when I saw all present radiant with joyful emotion, and glancing in the
same direction. Jesus was come in through the closed doors. He was robed
in a long white garment simply girded. They did not appear to be really
conscious of His approach, until He passed through the circles and
stood in their midst under the lamp. Then they became very
much amazed and agitated. He showed them His hands and feet and, opening
His garment, disclosed the Wound in His side. He spoke to them and,
seeing that they were very much terrified, He asked for something to
eat. I saw rays of light proceeding from His mouth. The Apostles and
disciples were as if completely ravished.
And now I saw Peter going
behind a screen, or hanging tapestry, into a recess of the hall which
one might fail to remark, since the screen was like the entire
wainscoting. In the center of this recess, on the Paschal hearth, stood
the Blessed Sacrament. There was a side compartment into which they had
pushed the table, which was one foot high, after they had eaten
reclining around it under the lamp. On this table stood a deep oval dish
covered with a little white cloth, which Peter took to the Lord. In the
dish were a piece of fish and some honey. Jesus gave thanks and blessed
the food, ate and gave a portion of it some, but not to all. To His
Holy Mother also and the other women, who were standing in the doorway
of the outer hall, He likewise distributed some.
After that I saw
Him teaching and imparting strength. The circles around Him were still
triple, the ten Apostles forming the inmost. Thomas was not there. It
appeared wonderful to me that part of Jesus’ words and instructions was
heard by the ten Apostles only, though I ought not to say for I did not
see Jesus moving His lips. He was resplendent. Light streamed over them
from His hands, His feet, His side, His mouth, as He breathed upon them.
It flowed in upon them. They became interiorly recollected, and felt
themselves endued with power to forgive sins, to baptize and heal and
impose hands; and I saw that, if they drank any poisonous thing, it
would be without receiving harm from it. But here I saw no talking with
the mouth, no hearing with the ears. I knew not how it was, but I felt
that Jesus did not impart these gifts with words, that He spoke not in
words, and that all did not hear what He said; but that He infused these
gifts substantially, with a substance as it were, with a flashing of
light in upon their soul. Still, I do not know whether the Apostles felt
that they had received them in this way, or whether they thought that
they had simply heard the words uttered naturally. I felt, however, that
it was only the innermost circle, the Apostles, that took or received
these gifts. To me it was like an interior speech, but without a
whisper, without the softest word.
Jesus explained to the Apostles
several points of Holy Scripture relative to Himself and the Blessed
Sacrament, and ordered the Latter to be venerated at the close of the
Sabbath solemnities. He spoke of the Sacred Mystery of the Ark of the
Covenant; of the bones and relics of ancestors and their veneration,
thus to obtain their intercession; of Abraham, and of the bones of Adam
which he had had in his possession and which he had laid on the altar
when offering sacrifice. Another point relating to Melchisedech’s
sacrifice, which I then saw, I have forgotten, although it was very
remarkable. Jesus further said that the colored coat which Jacob gave to
Joseph was an emblem of His own bloody sweat on the Mount of Olives. At
these words, I saw that coat of many colors. It was white with broad
red stripes. It had three black cords on the breast, with a yellow
ornament in the middle. It was full around the body so that things could
be put into it as into a kind of pocket, and girded at the waist. It
was narrow below and had slits at the side to afford more room for
walking. It reached to the ankles, was longer behind than before, and on
the breast, was open down to the girdle. Joseph’s ordinary dress
reached only to the knee.
Jesus likewise told the disciples that
Adam’s bones, which had been preserved in the Ark of the Covenant, Jacob
gave to Joseph along with the many colored coat. I saw then that Jacob
gave them to Joseph without the latter’s knowing what they were. Jacob’s
love prompted him to bestow them upon Joseph as a means of protection,
as a treasure, because he knew that his brothers did not love him.
Joseph carried the bones hanging on his breast in a little pouch formed
of two leathern tablets, not square, but rounded on top. When his
brothers sold him, they took from him only the colored coat and the
undergarment, leaving him a bandage round his loins and a scapular on
his breast. It was under the latter that the little pouch hung. On going
into Egypt, Jacob questioned Joseph about that treasure and revealed to
him that it was Adam’s bones. Again I saw the bones under Mount
Calvary. They were white as snow and still very hard. Some of Joseph’s
own bones were preserved in the Ark of the Covenant.
Jesus spoke too
of the Mystery contained in the Ark of the Covenant. He said that that
Mystery was now His Body and Blood, which He gave to them forever in the
Sacrament. He spoke of His own Passion and of some wonderful things
relating to David of which they were ignorant and which He explained.
Lastly, He bade them go in a couple of days to the region of Sichar, and
there proclaim His Resurrection. After that He vanished. I saw the
Apostles and disciples going around among one another, perfectly
intoxicated with joy. They opened the doors, went in and out, and
assembled again under the lamp, to sing canticles of praise and
thanksgiving.