Bishop Raul Martirez Leads Lenten Recollection for EMHCs

Last April 1, 2017, Bishop Raul Martirez facilitated a Lenten recollection for the Extraordinary Ministers of the Holy Communion (EMHCs) and their spouses. Since this was primarily put together as part of the ongoing formation of the EMHCs, it was appropriate that the overall theme of the recollection was ‘deepening our love for the Eucharist through Scripture’. For this recollection, Bishop Raul Lirst shared an effective method for appreciating the Word of God through Scripture via the acronym ‘WORD’, to stand for Worship, Observe, ReLlect and Direct. He then walked the attendees through an actual example on how to do this with his discussion and reLlection on the passage of ‘The Appearance on the Road to Emmaus’, Luke 24: 13-35.

There are so many things the lay faithful can take away from this story, which many of us have read or heard read in the past. However, for this recollection, Bishop Raul shared a fascinating insight on how this whole story actually followed the sequence of how the Eucharist is celebrated today. The Lirst part of the story, verses 13-27, can be considered as the Liturgy of the Word, where Jesus interprets how the Scriptures, beginning with Moses, referred to Him. The second part of the story, verses 28-32, is clearly the Liturgy of the Eucharist; where Jesus broke bread with the disciples.

Finally, Bishop Raul shared that, in the story, even if Jesus was physically present with the disciples during their moments of ‘darkness’, when they were experiencing grief and anxiety, they did not recognize him, but once they were enlightened and their ‘eyes were opened’, the Lord disappears, because we have been comforted by the reminder that he is ever-present even if he is physically invisible. Today, he is ever-present to us in the Eucharist and it is up to us, especially the EMHCs, to ‘open our eyes’ to recognize Him.