Podcast | April 20, 2026 | The Walk To Emmaus (Episode 97)

Welcome to Heart of the Homily Podcast.

We are back.

My name is Michelle Lopez, one of the hosts, and I'm here with Father Rigoer, our pastor.

How's it going, Michelle?

Doing wonderful.

Yeah.

And uh good, good to be back.

And these scriptures, I mean, the Easter scriptures are just so awesome.

Isn't it incredible?

Even the daily mass scriptures have just been so rich, so powerful.

I think even for a preacher, someone who is uh preparing homilies, there's so many ways you can go.

Sometimes you read uh a passage and you're like, oh, what am I gonna say, or how do I take?

But you're right, so much richness.

So we're in the heat of it.

Just the beautiful paschal mysteries here, the the Easter time, and I'm loving it.

Good.

Well, it's been so good.

And your helmets have been really uh continuing to really call us into living the Easter the Easter message, which is awesome.

Amen.

And so this week's um yesterday, Sunday was from the Gospel of Luke 24, 13 to 35.

It was the walk of Emmaus, which is a very familiar passage, but um always so much to go into.

So really excited.

And for those that are listening, the walk to Emmaus is disciples that were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus right after the crucifixion, and um had a great conversation and Jesus appeared in their midst.

So we're gonna kind of hop into um what Father was mentioning in the homily that I think was so powerful the walking away or walking towards Christ.

Yeah.

Um you're right.

I think that this gospel is known by a lot of people.

People know this gospel.

And even something that I mentioned at Mass is that if you've done an Emmaus retreat or even some other retreats, they will use this gospel.

Why?

Because there's so many elements to it in our faith journey.

And and so, yeah, I think that one of the things that I wanted to just get across is say, listen to it differently today.

Listen it with fresh ears because we're gonna maybe go at it a different way.

And I hope that it landed in a different perspective so people can bring it to their prayer life.

Yeah, and I think you did, Father, because usually when you think about the Maus story, it's like, oh, they were walking and then Jesus disappeared and they had a like, but kind of where you started about why were they walking away?

Right.

That was it caught my attention for sure.

Well, I think what's what's powerful is that the road to a maus doesn't begin with a crisis, right?

It's it doesn't begin with a scandal or a tragedy or some sort of dramatic break from God.

It begins with two people who are just walking away slowly, quietly.

And that's what I think makes it so powerful because we can relate to this story, but it's also very dangerous in the sense that most of us don't leave God in a blaze of anger.

And this is where it's so dangerous.

This is something where we're trying to pinpoint to uh highlight for someone because it is happening in so many of us.

We live in a fog of disappointment.

Yeah, and uh Yeah, and I want to talk about that fog because I think a lot of people are sitting in our pews or maybe even listening to this podcast, good, faithful people, people who have been showing up for years and are living in that fog, right?

Well, you highlighted the comment, right?

We were hoping.

We were hoping, and it reveals like that there's disappointment in the in the spiritual life.

Like that's you know, it's a it's a relationship.

So there's definitely unmet expectations, there's things in this real relationship, but Father, you're really focused on like we were hoping.

What what did that highlight for you for this homily?

Well, when I when I read it, I said, wow, it's right here.

It's that that whole I was hoping that God would do this for me.

I was hoping that God would come through for me in this, or it's it's that when disappointment sets in, right?

That word hoping is in past tense.

There's a wound there.

They had built an entire expectation of how God was supposed to work.

And when he didn't work that way, when the Messiah they expected ended up on a cross instead of a throne, then they didn't know what to do with that.

So they leave.

It's like, okay, I guess we go back to our regular lives, which is fascinating because if you you read in the gospel, it says, He says to the stranger who walks up next to him, he says, Haven't you heard what's going on?

Like, oh, but some of the women went back to the tomb, and the tomb is empty, right?

So even that wasn't enough for them to say, Okay, let me let's stay in Jerusalem.

Wait, there must be something more to this, yeah, but not even that was enough.

Right?

And I think that this is one of the most common reasons people drift from God, not theology, not scandal, not even intellectual doubt, disappointment.

They prayed for something sincerely, desperately, and God said no, or in their mind, God just never responded.

Or God said nothing, and the silence felt like betrayal.

And so I think all of us have been there, and we can relate to this, and so that's where I wanted to highlight it.

That that's the danger of drifting, saying your prayers, you know how to come to mass, you know how to recite the creed, you know everything you need to do, and even in life, you know how to follow the rules and and behave accordingly, but there's something there that keeps you distant, drifting, not committing.

And so that's what I wanted to kind of like hone in on it.

Because the thing is, it's not that you stop believing, it's not that you woke up one morning and decided, well, I'm done with God.

Right?

It's more subtle than that.

Because when we're coming to Mass and we're saying our prayers, it can become routine, it can become mechanical.

Well, this is just what I do, this is what my family's always done.

But something you do because you've always done it, not because it's feeding you anymore, is what I'm talking about being dangerous.

And the honest truth is a lot of people won't even say that out loud because it feels ungrateful, right?

Uh yeah.

You've been given this faith, you've been given everything, you've been given a lot of blessings, you have the sacraments, you have the Eucharist.

And yet something feels distant and you feel guilty for even thinking of it.

It's so true.

I mean, you've worked with a lot of people, and these are wounds that people have.

This is such this is such a real conversation, Father, because I mean, I think from you know, the person that's far in the journey to the person that's just starting, these are things that are experienced at times where we kind of um have have a good desire and saying, like, okay, Lord, do it this way.

Yeah.

You know, and again, a good place, it comes from a beautiful place.

Um, and it's a beautiful moment of trust, but we have to take that step further in like in humility, being able to know like this is what I desire and this is what I'm hoping for, and then like you be God and not me.

And that little shift is very difficult sometimes.

And you're reminding me of something.

I uh St.

Thomas Aquinas had this um this incredible insight in the Summa where he um distinguishes between what he calls desire and hope.

Right?

So desire is wanting something, hope is wanting something with the expectation that it will come from God.

You see the two differences in God's way, our and on God's timeline.

But, you know, the problem, I think, with the Emmaus disciples isn't that they desired redemption.

Of course they did, right?

The problem is that they had reduced their hope to a specific outcome.

They wanted a political liberator.

You heard him say it, oh, we were hoping that he would be the one to liberate us, that military king.

And then when God gave them something infinitely greater, a suffering redeemer who would conquer not Rome but death itself, they couldn't see it.

Because they had already decided what God's answer was supposed to look like.

And we do that all the time.

Yeah, right?

We try to, we've talked about this millions of times on our podcast, how we try to control the narrative at all cost.

How many of us do the same thing?

Absolutely.

And I think um, gosh, what comes to mind even in my in my own kind of journey is um like with our with our first son, Assis Gabriel, when um we learned that he was not gonna be with us very long.

And I remember praying for a miracle.

Um, and I think God gave the grace and the insight that as I started, you know, he was with us for 44 days.

Um, and in those 44 days, you know, I was praying for the miracle.

And the miracle I was praying for was like that like Lord, he would be healed.

Well, I was gonna ask you, what was the specific uh prayer that you were doing?

Yeah, I was like, Lord, would you would you heal my son?

Heal my son, right?

Would you heal my son?

Like have a miracle, you can do it.

And I think the more I kept praying that, the more the Lord kind of opened my eyes to make me confident and being like, Lord, whatever miracle will glorify you most.

And I knew that even in his passing, that the mirror like there was miracles happening, but I had to ask the Lord for the eyes to see it.

And it's it far surpassed anything I could have imagined.

Like the miracles that happened in other people's lives around me in my own heart.

Like, I mean, you know, I'm praying for his life, but the new life that happened in my heart that will lead me to eternal life was far greater than anything I could have imagined.

Um that's huge because when there's that much pain and maybe even confusion, um, disappointment, it's it's a beautiful thing to be able to get to where you're talking about because a lot of people will say, you know, I prayed for healing for my mother, or I prayed for this, and God didn't take her cancer away, or I'm praying for my marriage and my my husband still left me, and uh I'm praying for my children who have been away from the church and and they still are not participating in at Mass on Sundays.

And so we do say this we were hoping, right?

I think that it's very much of our human condition, uh, and we do it a lot.

Yeah, and I think that without even noticing that we do it, and we bring it into our prayer life, into our faith, it's just part of the fabric of who we are, and then it's brought to Jesus.

And this is where we're trying to kind of help all of us, even me included, to realize that wait a minute, he's walking with us, he's right there next to you.

And that's what that was one of the points that I wanted to stress.

But yeah, and I think what you even said with the disciples walking, they had a certain expectation that would have been good, but God gave the greater.

And I think knowing the story of the gospel and knowing the story of Jesus is our story, I think it invites us to pray like that, even in our suffering and even in these things where we can say, like, gosh Lord, I was I was hoping for this.

But if this isn't what I'm seeing, then you're doing it's the greater that you're doing.

And to have that step into faith of like, Absolutely, okay, Lord, if this isn't it, then like you're doing something greater, and to anchor us up and like that's the story.

That's the good news of our our Christian faith.

Well, you're reminding me from Pope Benedict XVI's space solving and his encyclical on hope.

And you know, he says that Christian hope is not optimism, and a lot of people don't understand that.

And it's exactly what you're talking about, even when you were talking about um when your your your baby was born, because what what is optimism will say, things will work out.

I'm an optimistic person, I'm a very positive person.

But that's not what hope says, right?

And that that's where we as Christians got to understand this because what does hope say?

Hope says God is faithful even when I can't see how.

Right?

And he made the point that true hope always involves a kind of surrender, a willingness to let God be God, what you were just talking about.

And even when his ways are not our ways, but that's that's the hardest thing in the world.

You know, to pray, to pray for something when your whole heart and then release the outcome to God, to say, trust you, Lord, even if this doesn't go away, or if it doesn't go the way that I want, or the way that I think it should be, I'm still gonna trust.

And you said that.

It's it's that that's one of the hardest things in the world to learn and to be free enough to do.

Because the disciples on the road, if you think about it, they couldn't do that, not yet.

They were still holding on to this version of the story, and it was precisely that grip.

Imagine they're so convinced in that narrative of what they've been discussing all the way from Jerusalem, and they they have a had a lot of time to talk together.

And he's saying to this the person, Jesus, they don't know it's Jesus, but have you not heard?

Where have you been?

Let me tell you, right?

So I'm gonna tell you what's been going on.

Um, but it was precisely that that insistence on their timeline, on their plan, their expectation that kept them from recognizing the risen Christ was walking with them the whole time.

It was right there, but they're blind to it.

They are blind to it.

And and Jesus isn't afraid to be in relationship with them there and talk about it.

And I think like that's such a key invitation to us is in the midst of when we say, right, like, I hoped that like we talk to Jesus about it, like tell him everything, you know?

And I think I think the temptation is to we isolate, we just kind of stopped talking to the Lord.

Where it's like it didn't work out, it didn't go this way, then like I'm not gonna share my heart anymore.

But I think the the disciples on the road to Emmaus, like, I love that there was like two and a half hours of conversation or like that walk was like they I mean, they they talked it out, they went into relationship with Jesus and invited him into the mess of and let him speak and right because the Lord already knew that they were disappointed, yeah, they were downcast, they were He's the one that picked them to show up.

That's what I'm always like.

Wait, exactly.

It wasn't like they were bumped into Jesus and like, oh, do you want to come with me?

This was intentional.

Yeah, and it's but it's so beautiful that Jesus wants to walk with us, and as we discover more deeply who he is, understand this plan, and allow him to you know illumine our hearts and our minds to understand to trust him.

But mention that conversation that these two are having on the way to Emmaus.

It was great disappointment.

We've been following him, we've been watching him, we saw the miracles, we heard all the stories.

And I've been praying a lot about this because I was thinking about this even this weekend and even uh this morning.

I was thinking, here they are watching everything that Jesus has done.

But is there something in your mind that says, well, God did this through him, right?

God enacted that miracle through this person, Jesus, this wonderful, wonderful itinerant preacher.

But then the resurrection happens, post-resurrection happens, they see him at the their eyes are open at the breaking of the bread, and they immediately get up and go.

But what I was thinking in my mind is for them, it must have clicked in their mind saying, This is God.

Only God can resurrect from the dead.

All of these other things, maybe your brain can kind of, oh well, God acted through an agent, or God, God is omnipotent, and he, but he's using this man.

But now they're saying, wait, Jesus is, I see him in the flesh.

Wait a minute, this is God.

And I think that that's where everything changes.

Yeah, that's a powerful moment.

And I and and that's you know, that's why the response is generous and full, and you know, taking their belief in Jesus being risen from the dead to the end of the world, you know, like I think that that clicking, you know, took place, and so which is marvelous because it sounds like the disappointment went deep.

So when this revelation came, it went even deeper.

Right.

Because they experienced that disappointment, like that they were able to experience this great renewal and revival of hope.

Yeah, because and here's something that I also was thinking about while you were saying that, because I think there's something even more dangerous than disappointment, and that's indifference.

And I see it all the time.

Disappointment at least means you cared.

You expected something from God, you asked God, you hoped, you were you were engaged enough to get hurt.

But indifference is what happens when you stop caring.

When the mass becomes background noise, when the homily washes over you, you're sitting there, you're daydreaming, you're not really engaged or active participation.

When you receive the Eucharist, maybe the same emotional investment you bring to brushing your teeth.

Not hostile, not angry, just flat.

Right?

I mean, that's a horrible analogy.

No, but that's real, Father, because it can be that routine where it's like a miracle is happening.

Like Jesus is being raised on the dead in front of you, and you're like, huh, that's nice, you know.

How do you wake up from that, Father?

That's like an amnesia, like amnesia.

That's like for how do you wake up from that?

I just I'm writing a book and I am so happy that I just finished it.

I finished it about a month ago.

And every waking hour, every free moment that I have, you'll see me at my computer.

I'm going through every little comma and just checking the grammar, checking the stories, taking out a story, putting in a story.

But there's one part that I in the in this the chapter about preaching, I talk about the early church fathers and this word that they use, akadia or a shadia, which is it shows up in the desert tradition, especially in the writings of some of these great uh fourth century monks, but they call um a shadia or acadia.

I don't remember, I don't really know how to pronounce the word, but it's this um noonday devil.

And listen to that because it strikes right in the middle of the day, in the middle of your vocation, in the middle of what you're you're you should be doing in your prayer life.

And what it does is not destroy your faith from the outside, it hollows you out from the inside out.

And even then, in the fourth century, the the church fathers were talking about this indifference that can infect you and cause a lot of havoc in your prayer life.

That sounds um awful.

Sounds awful and and maybe more than where we want to go to today, but no, but what you're saying is these things are they are they're slow, like they're subtle.

And I think, you know, the resurrection should wake us up to like we have to be intentional.

And I think this like the slow walking away, the slow daydreaming, like we have to be intentional about the way that we grow in our faith and put Christ first and and put our spiritual life first and not let um these other things have the last say and start being lazy even in our spiritual life because other things are keeping us busy or and I know some people, and I don't want to sound judgmental, um and because I know them, right?

I see them at mass and they're not awake.

And I'm not talking about they're sleeping at mass, I'm talking about they're just not awake to the mass, they're not awake to the world.

It's this one day bleeds into the next, and it's like, okay, let's we gotta do what we gotta do, and I'm here and it's a routine.

But I see them and I look in their eyes and I see they're not awake.

And and I think that it's this indifference that we're talking about, which yeah, disappointment is is huge, but at least disappointment says, okay, I cared, but indifference, you get to a deeper level, a deeper of maybe even despair, where it's just like I just I'm in a funk.

And and that could be very scary.

So we got to help people with that.

Yeah, and I I I think that that probably stems from the first disappointment, Father.

Like an unnamed disappointment, or like having an expectation that was not met, yeah, that just never is voiced.

Right.

You know, and you just kind of keep going and going and then and the thing here too is that I want people to understand is that the church has never pretended that the spiritual life is like this straight line, right?

Right.

That you know, even the great mystics, the people who knew God most intimately, somebody might like John of the Cross, we read about his the dark night of the soul, right?

And and what most people don't realize is that he didn't mean a crisis of faith, he meant a stage of faith.

And there there again, there's hope there.

Um, because he taught what that God sometimes withdraws the feeling of his presence, not to punish us, not because he's left, but for us to deepen our relationship with him.

And I and I think this happens to a lot of people too who are are moving into a more mature faith, who are um advancing in in holiness.

Because to move us from a faith that depends on consolation, now we're moving to a faith that deeply only depends on him, right?

So you see that that that now is faith that's growing, faith that's maturing.

Faith that is saying, I only want you.

And because if if every action that we have, every movement, the way that we we act and behave depends on consolation, there will be disappointments, there will be trials, there will be dis uh just a lot of things that will be thrown at you that will cause you to collapse and withdraw, or maybe have that indifference.

So we got to be very careful.

But think about that.

The dryness you're feeling might not be a sign that God is absent.

It might be a sign that He's inviting you to go deeper.

Past the feelings, past the comfort into something more real.

And I guess that's what we talk about here with our groups, our young people, our Bible studies.

It's it's that challenge to go deeper, to duke an altum, to to throw the net in deeper waters.

It's comfortable in the shallow waters, but perhaps the Lord is calling you to a deeper relationship with him.

Yeah, we actually were talking about that at the OCI last Monday.

We're talking about the three in the three ways, the purgative, eliminative, and unitive way.

And just that the spiritual life, you know, when God calls us to greater maturity, uh, might feel it feels different.

And it's nothing to be afraid of, but it's something to step into and to trust more deeply.

I love it.

Yeah.

And St.

Augustine, and I love this, and this is something that I was thinking about um in in the confessions.

And I always like to bring up Saint Augustine, our patron saint, and kind of inject them in wherever we can, because hopefully people are reading about our patron saint.

Maybe if you haven't read the confessions, I would recommend that you do that.

But um, he said in his confessions, you were within me, and I was outside myself.

And it was there that I searched for you, right?

Um, you know, he spent years chasing truth, philosophy, and pleasure and false religions in every direction, except the one that mattered.

And when he finally found God, he realized God had not been far all along.

Augustine had just been looking in the wrong places.

And that's what this homily was about today, uh, yesterday.

Because that might be the most important idea or suggestion or understanding of how we break open this homily for this past weekend is that anyone drifting from God needs to see that there's a deeper plan, that there's a a God who loves you so much that is right there in all of the messiness and all of the trials, and that because disappointment will blind you, grief will blind you, sin will blind you, and and it's not allowing you to see that he's right there standing next to you because he hasn't moved, you have.

But the good news is the gospel, and it's that he's still there, still walking beside you, still waiting.

And all he needs for you is to stop, to turn around, and then, like I mentioned at the homily um this weekend, though that beautiful prayer, stay with us, stay with me, Jesus, stay with me.

That is a beautiful prayer.

Because I think that that's that's the hinge right there.

It's and he's not going to force himself on him, on us.

He wants us to be, he wants to be invited.

And if we make that prayer with sincerity, Jesus, stay with me, stay with me in my marriage, stay with me in my brokenness, stay with me in this difficulty, stay with me in my doubt.

Um he will.

And then we begin to recognize him, right?

And in the Eucharist, where he makes himself available to us, where he is present and that we receive him, we have that nourishment to give us strength to keep forward.

But hopefully it's in that encounter, it's at mass where he becomes present that you say, He is there.

He loves me so much, and he gives me himself, his body and blood, to give to acknowledge the love that he has for me.

I just have to make the effort to be able to say, Stay with me, Lord.

And to pray that honestly, you know, and pray that real honestly, to let um, because it's it's like inviting Jesus to stay and to be.

And I think, like you were saying, God doesn't force himself, like, but we have to invite him.

And I think that's a place sometimes we're um yeah, like we're hesitant to invite him and to say, like, Lord, you have permission to be with me right now.

You have permission to be in this area of my life, you have permission to be in this area of disappointment.

Um, and even kind of going back to the whole um, like we were hoping, like I invite you into this disappointment, Lord, and show me out, you know, like show me the way out.

Um, but what a beautiful, yeah, stay with me.

And the whole thing is to struggle with faith, to struggle with your doubts, to struggle with the questions, but keep asking the right questions.

Don't get stuck because there could be a tendency to see it as silence or even indifference from the part of God.

Say, no, go up and and and challenge and say, Lord, I need you, I want you, I desire you.

Uh, help me to feel your presence in in this, whatever it is that I'm going through.

But He desires to walk with us, and that's the beautiful part.

But our own doing, our own stubbornness, our own disappointments, our own uh wanting to control everything blinds us.

And that will take us down a path of the wrong road, going down the wrong direction.

Um and it may just take you seven miles, it may take you seven days, it may take you seven years or 70 years.

And and hopefully that journey in the opposite direction is not a long one.

It's one that you say, oh Lord, I want to, I want to turn back, I want to go back to Jerusalem.

I don't want to head towards Emmaus.

I want to head run, I want to run back to uh Jerusalem, proclaiming you and being able to share with others the truth that I have come to know, even in my own pain, in my own struggles, even in your life, Michelle, with all of the sad moments with with uh your children and being able to see that every good Friday has a resurrection.

And that if there's trust and there's faith in in the plan that the Lord has for us, there's peace and we find fulfillment in what we said earlier, right?

That it's it's not optimism, it's it's really truly trusting in God's will and God's plan for our lives.

Well, thank you, Father.

And as we kind of wrap up our conversation today, I think it's a great question to look at um, kind of where is God calling me to kind of get up and go back, like like the disciples did.

Um, and I think being able to name disappointment and begin to have a conversation to G about about it with Jesus, as well as like asking him to like be there and reveal himself, like what he wants to say about that disappointment or entrusting it to you the Lord and then being able to know that a greater hope is happening, a greater thing is happening.

Um, so Father, as we wrap up, any particular um comments or kind of imitation you want to make to our I would just say do the hard work.

Do be I I tell a lot of these, especially our our young college students, I say, pretend you're you're conditioning as an athlete.

Do the hard work, be disciplined.

I've said this millions of times.

I'm gonna continue saying it until it's drilled into our heads, even in my head, but it's be disciplined, be structured, um, be that conditioned athlete who no matter what will show up, even when it's hard, even when I doubt, even when I don't believe, even when I am struggling, I said no, I will show up and I will pray and I will beg and I will ask the Lord to open my eyes to see him walking next to me.

You I think you opened this up at the podcast.

The richness of the readings that we're having right now in this Easter season is so strong.

I would just recommend everybody take some time out.

Make sure you're you're either if you're going to daily mass or if you're you have the opportunity, read the daily scriptures.

Um because what's happening in the Acts of the Apostles is the good news.

It's what happens on the other side of people who do not compromise, people who give it their all to be able to say, I know this risen Christ, and I will give my life for this risen Christ because I believe in him.

And that's what he's asking.

Be faithful, show up, do the hard work, and you will see that you will have peace in your heart and find fulfillment in your life.

So well, thank you, Father, and thank you all who are listening.

Um, feel free to share this podcast if you enjoyed it, someone that might be inspired by it, and uh continue to like and follow us, and thank you for your attention.

Thanks, Michelle.

Have a great week.

We'll see you next Monday.

Sounds great.