We can see Jesus present amidst us, because of the Living faith nourished and nurtured by the Spirit of Truth He has given us as He promised. Jesus is present among us in three ways:
1. In His Living Word proclaimed in the Church
2. In the Most Holy Eucharist
3. In the community of believers gathered in His name.
The world cannot recognize Jesus in the first two ways of His presence. God's preferred avenue of people reaching the point of recognition of Christ in His Word and the Eucharist is the experience of presence of the Risen Lord in lives of His followers. If we are light of the world and people can see our good lives and deeds, our Gospel difference from the surrounding world, difference strengthened by the Spirit of Truth; if people can see Jesus in us and our lives, our words and deeds, our attitude and fidelity to principles, if they can touch Him in us, then this will be the breakthrough allowing them to go further and meet Him in more dense and dramatic way:
1. in His Living Word that sets alight hearts and consciences of people searching for Him and answers to the burning questions in their lives - just like the heart of those two disciples on their way to Emaus,
2. in the Eucharist, concluding with coming into intimate union with Him in the Holy Communion.
I think, touched by today's Gospel that the Sunday Mass is of utmost importance to us who want to show Jesus to the world and make others His disciples and sharers of the salvation promised by Him. The Sunday Mass in particular, as every Mass indeed - is the perfect and ultimate example of Christ's threefold presence at once - in the Liturgy of the Word, in the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the sacred congregation gathered in His Holy Name.
The extension of this presence reaching out to the world, to the people who walk in darkness, who do not know yet Christ and His saving power, is in us. By meeting Him in the Sunday Mass, receiving Him in His Word touching our hearts and moulding our consciences, attitudes and opinions, decisions and choices into His fashion... by meeting Him in the Holy Communion, we are sent by the power of His blessing at the end of the Liturgy - to the world, so that people may see this Jesus we met in the church in us, in our eyes, smiles, words, decisions, goodness, but also in firmness and resolve of living the truth by the power of the Spirit of Truth, standing by the principles, fulfilling our daily duties calmly and God's commandments, taking responsibility for our failures and sins, rising up from ashes and putting us again together through His Mercy, remaining there where He needs us in spite of our weaknesses and shortcoming, our past histories and disappointments, and proclaiming Him with hope through the whole life, day in day out...no matter what...
This connection with the Sunday Mass is so important for our task of sanctification of the world, each one of us in her/his tiny part of it... If I want to show this Risen Jesus to my people, to my part of the world, I have to be full of Him in the first hand. Meeting Him on the day of His victory in the event which is the pinnacle of His presence in the world - in the Holy Mass, soaking up His presence, letting Him to transform us into Him, and bringing Him and revealing Him to our parts of the world by our own daily lives, words, thoughts, deeds, decisions and so forth...
Putting aside a special God's interventions in people lives, the main avenue for most of non-believers to come to see Jesus, to meet Him in a way which will touch them deeply and transform them into His followers is our own lives as the light of the world... People must see this Jesus in us, touch Him in our lives and be hungry for more...
Then we will tell them - 'come and see'... bringing them to His Word and His Eucharistic Presence.
As the Holy Father Paul VI said once - the world does not need teachers to recognize Jesus. It needs witnesses of His presence in the world.
Become one.
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