Regina Riley tells a story that many parents can relate to. For years she had prayed that her two sons would return to the faith. Then one Sunday morning in Church she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her two sons came in and sat across the aisle from her. She asked her sons what prompted their return to the faith. One Sunday morning while vacationing in Colorado they were driving down a mountain road. It was raining cats and dogs. They came upon an old man without an umbrella. He was soaked through and through. The brothers stopped and picked him up. It turned out that the stranger was on his way to Mass at a church 3 miles down the road. Since the rain was coming down so hard, they decided to go in with the stranger and take him home after Mass. As they listened to the readings and sat through the breaking of the bread something moved them deeply. The only way they could explain it was: ‘You know mother, it felt so right; like getting home after a long tiring trip.’ This story of the two brothers with the stranger on the Colorado Road bears a striking resemblance to today’s gospel. The two disciples traveling along the Emmaus Road had once followed Jesus with hope and joy. Then came the stormy hours of Good Friday. All their hopes and dreams got smashed; they left Jesus in an unmarked tomb and returned to their former ways. It was against this background that they met the stranger on the Emmaus Road on Easter Sunday morning. The disciples listened to him, watched him break bread. The stranger was not a stranger at all. It was Jesus he was alive and risen. Almost the identical thing happened to the two brothers on the Colorado road. There was a time when they followed Jesus closely, when they believed he was the son of God. Then came the stormy days of adolescence. Their hopes got smashed; totally disillusioned they left Jesus behind and went their own way. It was against this background that they met the stranger on a Colorado road one rainy Sunday morning. The story of the disciples on the Emmaus Road and the story of the brothers on the Colorado road are not unlike our own story. We all have had stormy periods in our lives when our faith got smashed. Perhaps we became disillusioned with the church. Perhaps we even left the church. But then one day we met someone, a stranger perhaps and it was through this stranger that we found Jesus again. Sometimes in our journey through life we are full of sadness and disappointments, perhaps because we are walking towards a sunset. We need to recover the spring in our step like the two disciples in today’s story. For the two travelers the whole situation was meaningless, their dreams were shattered.  When Jesus spoke to them, darkness became light; the meaning of life became clear. We admire the ability of Jesus to make sense of the whole situation. When we waver in a confused world; when we feel overburdened and weary, when we fall under the yoke of our trials, temptations, and mood swings, why not turn to Jesus and He will renew our lives with a new spring. Any authentic encounter with the Risen Christ must give us this spring in our step.  Yes, it is true that the Lord has risen; but have we?  It was a seven mile walk for Emmaus to Jerusalem, this might take 2 hours, but our journey to Emmaus may take many years, when we are trying to make sense of everything that is happening in our lives is part of God’s plan. Like the two disciples who discovered Jesus in the breaking of the bread that is why the mass is so important for us because it is here that we will discover Jesus. Poem: “Sometimes when everything goes wrong; when days are short and nights are long; when washday brings so dull a sky, that not a single thing will dry.  And when the kitchen chimney smokes, and when there’s naught so ‘queer’ as folks!  When friends deplore my faded youth, and when the baby cuts a tooth.  While John, the baby last but one, clings round my skirts till day is done; And fat good-tempered Jane is glum, and butcher’s man forgets to come. Sometimes I say on days like these, I get a sudden gleam of bliss. Not on some sunny day of ease, He’ll come…. But on a day like this!”