Summary
Woundedness and Grief can prevent you from seeing the many ways that the Lord works in your life, but the season of Lent offers you the opportunity to invite Jesus to walk alongside you. Through personal testimony and the Scriptures, Michelle Karen D’Silva shares a powerful message of hope to carry throughout the Lenten season.
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Reflective Study Guide Questions
“Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’”
Luke 24:31-32
1. In the story of the Road to Emmaus, we see followers of Jesus go from being without hope to their hearts set ablaze. Where along their journey with Jesus do you find yourself? Are you struggling to maintain hope in this season? Where is Jesus in your story?
2. Looking back on your life, can you see the ways in which God was working in it, even during difficult moments? What are some of the ways your life fits into the story of Salvation?
3. What areas of your life need some “spring cleaning” this Lent? Where does Jesus want to breathe hope into your life?
4. Who in your life needs hope right now? Who will you take on your Lenten journey?
Text: Encountering Jesus this Lent
Hello friends and welcome to the Pray More Lenten Retreat. Peace of Christ be with you. My name is Michelle and I’m joining you from Qatar and I thank you for the opportunity to pray with you and journey alongside you this Lenten season. I know that I will be speaking a lot of words today, but I also know that the most important thing you will hear is what the Holy Spirit desires to bring to your heart.
Because He wants to draw near and love you and heal you and bring you to total freedom. And so, before we begin, why don’t we spend a few moments in silence and we invite the Holy Spirit to come and fall afresh upon our hearts as we welcome and say, Come Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
A Time for Cleaning
Friends, I’ve been thinking about Lent and what it means, and as you know, Lent is springtime, and that, uh, you know, immediately means, uh, new growth or new life, but then there’s also spring cleaning. You know, it’s an opportunity to cast out the old, repair the wear and tear, and possibly bring in something new.
And I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve been thinking about Lenten spring cleaning, and how It disturbs my routine and how it pushes me to confront those things that are lying in the closet of my heart for so long that I’m so afraid to cast out. Or perhaps a spiritual responsibility that the Lord is impressing upon my heart that I’m so afraid to bring in.
You know, a few years ago when I was decluttering my wardrobe during Lent, I found an old almost faded photograph of my grandmother and me. And I remember staring at it, tears streaming down. It was 25 years since her passing. And there was something about holding that image in my hand that felt like I was holding her and I felt instantly at home.
And I remember that very vivid experience, I felt this very palpable, ache for heaven. A longing for a day that is coming where there will be no more tears, no more sickness or pain or grief. And brothers and sisters, the greatest consolation of our Christian faith rests on the fact that our Gospel is centered around this hope, this very hope.
That no matter how much evil or suffering we see now, death and grief will not have the final word because Christ is risen from the dead. This is the hope that we will profess today. This is the hope we declare throughout our lives.
Luke 12:12-34
Our reflection today is centered around this hope, this marvelous post resurrection masterpiece recounted by Saint Luke in Luke’s Gospel, Luke chapter 24, verses 13 to 34.It tells us that two disciples are moving from Jerusalem, the center of their discipleship to Emmaus, seven miles away. One of them is Cleopas. The other is unnamed and their story is set against the backdrop of Good Friday. Jesus is crucified, and along with him, all hope has died. And then that same morning, women have come running from the tomb, reporting a missing body and an angel’s declaration that Jesus is alive, which seemed to them nothing more than an idle tale.
They could not believe the very thing they wanted most to believe, and they are walking away. And somewhere along their journey, you know, they are discussing, they are sharing, they are venting. When they unexpectedly encounter a stranger, the risen Christ walking beside them, the very embodiment of their hope walks beside them, but they won’t or can’t or don’t see it.
But there is one thing they do. They allow Jesus to journey with them. And this is a very important part of our discipleship because grief blinds us and sorrow can prevent us from coming to Jesus, especially during difficult times. Who do I turn to first when I’m faced with crises? Am I open to the Holy Spirit when I go through difficult times?
And then Jesus begins to inquire, and they tell him the events of the cross, and then they respond with faces downcast. “We had hoped”, verse 21, that he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped, past tense, history. We had hoped a marriage would work. We had hoped our son, our daughter, would return. We had hoped we could carry this child to full term.
We had hoped for healing. “We had hoped.” And I love how unobtrusive Jesus is, he is familiar with [grief. Jesus knows death and the tomb. He knows what it means to be mortal, Jesus listens to them. He listens, and then he speaks. Verse 25, he says, How foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe what the prophets had declared! Was it not necessary for the Messiah to enter and suffer these things and then enter into glory?
And then he begins to tell them the backstory, explaining what was said in the scriptures concerning him. He starts from the very beginning, how chaos becomes creation, how slavery surrenders to freedom, how out of destruction comes new creation, how out of death emerges new life. And now the story begins to change to something far bigger and deeper and greater and older and wiser and richer than they have understood. Then what we understand.
God’s Great Grand Design
You see, this is something we miss over and over in our journeys that all the experiences of our life, all the circumstances of our life, all the pieces of our life, however broken they are, they find their place in God’s great grand design. If only we have eyes to see nothing in our life is random, nothing is just mere coincidence. Nothing is ordinary. Every chapter of our life. However broken it is, is a part of God’s great redemptive story, if only we believe.
You know, I had my conversion experience in April 2004. But prior to that, you know, I had absolutely no interest in God. I grew up Catholic, but we didn’t really practice our faith. And somewhere along my early teens, my home was marked with a lot of pain. There was a lot of, you know, dysfunction in our family. My parents fought constantly and that created deep insecurities in me as a little girl.
Later on, as I grew up, that pain manifested in a lifestyle of addictions and promiscuity. But there came a point in my life when I couldn’t cope anymore. And I remember that day so well, I looked in the mirror and all I saw was emptiness. Every glimmer of hope extinguished by the lie that God did not exist, that hope was not real. And as I was about to gulp down those pills, you know, perhaps to overdose myself, that door that I had most certainly closed miraculously opened, and my grandmother walked in, and my life was spared.
My grandmother was like a mother to me and my sister, but one day she was knocked down and she suffered a stroke and she was paralyzed. The only safe refuge in our lives now reduced to a lifeless body before us. The only thing that moved were her eyes. And I remember every time I would walk into the room, her eyes would light up, and tears would be streaming down her face, and even a hard hearted person like me knew there had to be something more to life than what was happening in my life at that moment.
But one afternoon, her condition worsened. And I remember being alone in that room with her and I remember screaming out in anger Pointing my fist upwards and shouting. I don’t believe you exist God But in the remotest possibility that you do, why don’t you show yourself and take her away and relieve her of this pain.
Next morning my grandmother passed away, but I never Connected the dots not until after my conversion One day during prayer time, I saw an image of my grandmother’s bedside and Christ’s light streaming all over her, and then I saw it; that same light was all over me. Jesus’s footprints were all over my life, even when I couldn’t see.
Jesus was walking alongside my broken road, even when I could not recognize him. You know, I have my own narratives too. Time and time again I said to myself, nothing good can come out of you. You are not worthy for a blessing. Like the disciples I wallowed in past tense. I said I had hoped, I had hoped that my story would not end in pain.
And brothers and sisters, it didn’t. It never will because Christ is risen from the grave. I cannot imagine expecting anything beyond death for my grandmother in that room. But this is because my lens is so small, so myopic. Even today, when I go through difficult times, I tend to lose sight of the big picture before me.
Let Him Lead Your Life
And how my story is weaved into God’s all-encompassing life story. And like Cleopas and his companions, my dear friends, I, you, we, need to allow Jesus to accompany us on this road. So he can weave memory, and scripture, and purpose, and history, and destiny back into these tiny, finite narratives that we cling to the side of eternity.
And scripture says, as Jesus was talking to them, they experienced the arrival of something new. It’s as if their hearts were set ablaze with a flame that came not from without, but from within and they pleaded with Jesus to stay. You know, I’ve often wondered what would happen if they didn’t allow Jesus to accompany them or they said their goodbyes halfway through the journey, or they had simply given up on hope.
How differently their stories would end. But you see, Jesus, He never imposes, he never invades. He gives us the freedom to decide what we really want on our discipleship journey. Do I want Jesus to accompany me even in this pain? Am I willing to be corrected and taught by Jesus? Do I desire to go deeper?
Am I willing to let Jesus remain only as a guest or do I want him to become my host and lead my life? Stay with us, they pleaded. Verse 29. Stay with us. A welcome, an invitation, an openness, an openness to allow the Holy Spirit to come and do what only the Holy Spirit can do. And as they gather around that Eucharistic table.
Scripture says that Jesus took bread, and he broke it, and he gave thanks, and he blessed it, and he gave it to them. And verse 31 says, Now their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. And they said to one another, Were not our hearts burning within us when he was talking to us on the road, and when he opened the scriptures to us?
Were not our hearts burning? Yes, they are, because now the scales of their eyes have fallen off as the word is broken before them. Now the true image of God is before them. The word of God, Jesus. Broken, given for the salvation of the world. Jesus is no political warrior. He is a suffering servant. His mission is not war and win.
His mission is love and mercy. Now they understand that Jesus bodily presence is no longer required as a condition for their new hope. He is with them. He is with us always. And verse 33 says, they immediately got up and returned. Where? To Jerusalem, the center of their discipleship, the very place they were running away from.
And that return journey, my dear friends, is made by nightfall. So much more hazardous. And it is 11 miles long, even longer than the first. But now, there is no fear. There is no loneliness. Only, hope. Only hope. What a great reminder this is, the Emmaus story, my dear friends, is an Easter story. On the very day we flower our crosses and sing our hallelujahs, this road stretches before us.
In This Hope We Live and Die
Joy and sorrow entwined, pain and purpose entwined. And we realize that the death of Jesus, the shattered life of the Son of God, is not covered by the reparative book of Easter. No, He is both slain and standing, wounded and whole, scarred and sacred, broken and given for us. This is our hope. This is what we profess in the act of hope, in this hope, we live and die.
In this hope, we live and die. On this side of eternity, yes there is pain. Yes, there is loss. And you and I, we have our own amassed narratives. We may not always see Jesus, and sometimes it may seem like he’s a stranger interrupting our plans. Sometimes we may see him, but in small, puzzling, fleeting glimpses.
But we hold the resurrection hope, we hold the resurrection hope that the end of our journey is light, that at the end of our journey is victory, that at the end of our journey we will behold Him who held us, who carried us all along, and we will hold our loved ones, not in picture frames, my dear friends, but in tangible, embracing hugs.
Friends, this Lenten season, perhaps you’ll do some spring cleaning like me, and you might discover physical places and things and spiritual places that may bring painful memories. All of, you know, old wounds might resurface, and along with it, the narrative of hope in the past tense. But I want you to know that this is the very place that Jesus desires to enter with your permission.
A Breath of Hope
The Holy Spirit desires to breathe hope now, right where you are. And our Lord is so kind, so gentle, he will not invade, he will not push us, but he does desire to encounter us. And right now, Jesus wants to encounter you right where you are. right at the point of your need. And he wants to weave scripture and memory and history and destiny.
He wants to breathe hope. I believe that there is a reason why the name of the other disciple is left out. Perhaps you can put your name there. Jesus wants to encounter you today. I also believe that he intentionally left out that name so that, we can think of one person this Lenten season who desperately needs this hope like us.
Who will you take with you this Lenten journey? The Holy Spirit is asking us to become witnesses of hope in this generation perishing without hope. Who in your life needs hope, my dear friends? And for the hope that we need, and for the hope our neighbor needs, let our hearts respond. Stay with us, Lord.
Stay with us. Be with us. Breathe hope in us. Lord, encounter us. Teach us. Correct us. Open the scriptures to us. Let your word be engrafted in us. Burn our hearts, Lord. Burn our hearts for more of you. Give us a hunger and thirst for righteousness for more of you. Stay with us. Encounter us again, and again and again.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. God bless you.
About Michelle Karen D’Silva
Michelle Karen D’Silva is a Catholic Speaker who has served at numerous international platforms including leading worship at the Golden Jubilee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Rome and the World Youth Day in Panama.
She resides in Doha, Qatar along with her husband Jensil and their 2 kids. Michelle is an active member of her parish – Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Rosary. She serves as a member of the National Service of Communion (NSC), attending to the pastoral needs of the community through preaching and mentoring.
Michelle pioneered the first Catholic Charismatic Youth Group in Qatar and continues to serve in the capacity of Youth Mentor. She has spearheaded numerous youth retreats, conferences and Gospel concerts including leadership and discipleship training for youth leaders across the Gulf.
In 2018 Michelle co-authored the book – ‘Life in the Spirit, Youth Edition’ under the mandate of CHARIS Youth Asia-Oceania and has traveled across the Middle East and Oceania equipping young leaders to lead and animate the Life in the Spirit seminars.
Michelle’s passion to equip and empower women has resulted in ‘WellSpring Women’, an online community that has hosted an array of virtual programs bringing women from over 30 countries together. She is also the host of “Unravel” – a podcast show dedicated exclusively for women.
If you would like to know more about Michelle or access a collection of free Catholic resources, please visit her website www.michelledsilva.com