Someone once said, "Gratitude comes from knowing God." In Luke's Emmaus episode, two of the disciples who left Jerusalem to Emmaus were met by Jesus in their journey, although He was unrecognizable to them then. Jesus started walking with them and joined in their conversation but they continued to be downcast and were deeply buried in their sadness for the horror that had taken place. Gratitude was painful for them.

You may have been on this journey to Emmaus and may have walked the journey again, when a stranger suddenly turned up, and started talking about things that speak very closely to your heart, so much so it reached the point where your heart burned within you as you heard His words. How would you have reacted? Dismissed it as simply as a "physical symptom" of gastritis? Or would you have uttered words of gratitude and taken to prayer? You may have walked that Emmaus journey, your eyes were opened and you began to recognize Jesus within the person, how had that encounter changed your direction in life?

Today we must not be afraid to ask for the grace to be able to recognize our Lord in all of the hooks and crooks of our activities of daily living, and especially more at the breaking of bread at Mass. Being able to recognize Him, we can assure others to be open to encounter Him on their journey.