What we read in St Luke’s Gospel today comes near to the end of his story.

In today’s story, in Chapter 24 of Luke’s Gospel, we meet the two disciples who had met the risen Jesus as they were walking along the road to the village of Emmaus. Ultimately they had recognised him when he broke bread with them.

These two people then rushed back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples that Jesus was alive again.

It seems that the other disciples didn’t believe them. Then suddenly Jesus was there in their midst. Still they didn’t believe what they were seeing. Maybe their eyes were playing tricks. Maybe it was some sort of ghost or a mirage.

Then to their great surprise Jesus asked for something to eat. Only living human beings ask for something to eat.

Jesus was not dead. He was as human as he had been before his death, sometimes we all struggle with the belief in life after death. What this passage from St Luke’s Gospel is endeavoring to make very clear is that human life does continue after death. Jesus was the same human person that he was before his death. Jesus was not a misty figure or an imagined memory of someone the disciple’s once knew.

We are disciples of Jesus. For us Jesus is not a memory but a real living human being. Consequently our own loved ones who have died are much more than “memories”. They are real living human persons in a new life of perfection.

We are disciples of Jesus. We are not just disciples of a memory. Today we are invited to forgive each other and, if we do, the real presence of Jesus will be always with us and hopelessness and fear will never burden us down again.