SPIRITUALITY OF ACCOMPANIMENT - Part V
Lessons from the Risen Lord (Lk 24:13-35)
contd...
Lesson 6: The REALISATION may be hind sight (v.32)
When I was a boy, a student of Standard Twelve, we had a warden whom we considered a terror! We complained all the while about him being strict and in fact we organized a campaign against him among our classmates! I wonder how hurt he felt when we did this to him, whereas we were determined that we were right in making him feel bad about his strictness. Just a few years later, when I looked back, I could not be grateful enough to the very same person. Ironically, he almost became my role model when I had a group of boys to take care on my part! The realization was post factum, it was a hind sight!
Jesus was determined to make those disciples understand for once the meaning of God’s schemes. What would the two of them have thought when this ‘wayfarer’ began speaking in terms like, ‘O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken’?(Lk 24:25) He did not mind being stern with making the truth known. Though they understood nothing much of what was said, later they looked back in hind sight and opened their eyes wondering, ‘Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?’ Our accompaniment with the young should matter for the whole life, and not cause just a momentary familiarity.
Lesson 7: Make a DIFFERENCE (v. 33, 34)
I was wonderstruck by what happened in the family of a friend. The son who was put in school for his JKG (Junior Kinder Garden) was crying all the time at school. He was found to be a nuisance by the management. They called for the parents and had a long chat as to what trouble the boy was creating. When my friend finally finished with that meeting and was returning home with his son, spoke on the way to him and said, ‘you know sonny, the principal was mad at me because you were crying all the time and creating trouble!’ The little boy was quiet all that while back home and the next day onwards looked so sad when he went to school but never cried again! That his father loved him so much and bore that shouting for his sake, changed that child drastically. That dad did make a difference in that kid!
When the disciples recognized Jesus finally, that very same hour they rose up and returned to Jerusalem. In v.13 we read that Jerusalem was threescore furlongs away from Emmaus and it was from there that the disciples had walked and recognition of Jesus makes them go back all the way, a right about turn, a total reversal of things! Jesus made a huge difference. Our accompaniment of the young should make a difference. They should feel they are a lot different after they have met us!
The Spirituality of accompaniment demands that we realize our vocation, remain grateful for the young entrusted to us and humbly seek the will of God according to which we would walk along with the young!
The end of the Reflection.
