Signposts On The Way

In my region there is a popular devotion to Jesus whose title is the "Foreigner Lord "; he bears this name because the image came from Peru. Personally this title always reminds me of the text in which Jesus approaches his disciples on the road to Emmaus. At first they did not recognize him but something told them that there was something special in that stranger. He seemed to have no news of what happened in Jerusalem and yet he was able to shed light on that situation. It is that the extra life that the resurrection of the Lord brings leads us to discover the reality in which we live from a new perspective; beyond our limits.

We can compare our life with a path. We do not have at our disposal prior training or a manual with all the possible instructions that allow us to walk the path in complete safety. In this journey that is life, "the path is made by walking" as the song by Joan Manuel Serrat says; that is, we are learning to live by living. But the new life that the Risen Lord offers us opens our minds and hearts, changes our gaze. It is not about special training or perfect instructions, but about an opening of vision that allows us to discover the presence and action of Jesus in our midst.

This new gaze allows us to discover in the other not hell (as Jean-Paul Sartre thought) but our brother/sister; it helps us to understand that the community is not an obstacle but rather the environment where Jesus is alive and active. This is what makes the disciples, realizing that the foreigner was Jesus, immediately return to the community to share that new life offered and received.