The Road to Emmaus: Image of the Jewish Failure to Recognize Christ as Messiah?

Prerequisite:

Resurrection Scenes as Revealing Jewish Conversion Mystery

http://www.catholic365.com/article/6526/resurrection-scenes-as-revealing-jewish-conversion-mystery.html

In the above prerequisite article, we learned the following:

Christ’s Old Body and events of the Gospel before the Resurrection filled up and fulfilled all that is of the Old Covenant, the Laws, the history. At the Cross, His Body, and thereby all things Old, were put to death and abolished. BUT, through the Resurrection, rather than totally and radically different, the Old Law came to life again in the New Resurrected Body of Christ. This Body did not destroy all things old utterly but transformed them into elements of the New, elements that now truly redeem and matter. Therefore, the New Body of Christ is LIKE the Old Body in many ways, but also DIFFERENT; And THAT MEANS, it is not, at first glance, completely RECOGNIZABLE!

This perfectly images the Jewish relationship to Christ in the history of the Church. In the beginning, the Jews see hardly anything in Christ that they can recognize, since they have CLUNG so hard to the Old Law. Progressively, however, as more of the New Law comes into focus, the Jews grow closer to Christ, while yet being unable to fully recognize Him until the final phase of Church history, the Great Apostasy and Antichrist.

If all of the Old Covenant is fulfilled in Christ, then too, its history. Hence, the Gospel details, at various junctures, fulfill Old Testament history of the Jews in its entirety. But the Church is the mystical Body of Christ! Hence, too, the Church must fill up the whole Old Covenant history itself. But, then, this is surely what will convert the Jews, for if Christ filled up all things in them in Himself, and yet they have not believed, how much more will it be necessary for the Jews to see these things filled up in the Body of Christ, the Church, to believe. Hence, what is LACKING IN THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST IS FILLED UP IN CHRIST’S BODY THE CHURCH! That is, what Christ could not do with HIS Body (convert the Jews), the Church will attain with HER Body!

“Only when I have placed my hands in the nail marks and in his side, shall I believe!”

We saw there, that the Jewish History and Church history mirrors the three-fold way of the saint:

If the Church, as New People of God, journeys the way of the saint apocalyptically, why not the Old People God, the Jews?!

Indeed, they did! Jesus filled up in HisFlesh, His Old Flesh, this whole way of the saint! How? How many steps are in this way? Three! And what is the most occurring number in the Gospels? Three!

On the THIRD day He arose

For THREE days and THREE nights, Jonah was in the whale

THREE times Peter denied Christ, and THREE times he was reconciled (Peter, do you love Me?)

THREE times Jesus prayed in Gethsemane to do the Will of His Father

THREE times Jesus fell carrying the cross.

For THREE hours, Jesus hung on the cross

For THREE days and THREE nights, Joseph and Mary looked for Jesus

THREE times Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene before she recognized Him…

Put simply, we can argue the examples of these threes, all of which are progressions, simply image the progressions of the Three Ways, and that, therefore, the supreme meaning of these is that even the Old People traversed the way of the saint apocalyptically.

For now, the parallels are immediate:

The Purgative Way: The Church had pagan Rome, the Jews had Egypt

The Illuminative Way: The Church had freedom from pagan Rome and doctrinal development of the Magisterium, culminating with Gentile apostasy of our modern times. The Jews had the Exodus, the Old Testament Prophets, who developed the Law, and the supreme apostasy just before the Exile.

The Unitive Way: The Church is soon to have a tribulation, per most mystics’ approved testimony, that will convert the outer world and restore them to love of God; Catholic Christendom will be rebuilt. Too, the Jews had the chastisement of the Babylonian Exile, which converted them back to God, and they were restored to their land of refuge and rebuilt the literal House of God, the Temple. Finally, the Church will have a literal Antichrist and persecution followed by the ultimate threshold, the Second Coming of Christ, just as the Jews had an Antichrist in the final night of Maccabees, Antiochus, and martyrdom and persecution, followed by the threshold of the First Coming of Christ.

So we recall St Thomas. St Thomas will not believe in the Christ until he has experienced every last wound of Christ Risen before his eyes. How much more is that, though Christ fulfilled every last age of the Old People in His life and death, the Old Body of Christ, the Jewish People will not believe until they have seen every last phase of their history fulfilled in the New Body of Christ, the Church.

Which is to say, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ shall be filled up in Christ’s mystical body, the Church! Meaning, the whole history of Israel, spiritually, will be fulfilled by the Church!Moreover, the Church’s fulfillment will bring out only what is important, which is to say, the New Testament aspects of Old.

Hence, as more and more history of the Church unfolds, fulfilling the spiritual aspects of Old Testament history, more and more do the Jewish People recognize themselves and their essence in the New Covenant, so that, at the apex, the final crux, New Testament Antichrist, fulfilling Old Testament Antichrist Antiochus, the Jews’ eyes are opened, and they exclaim, “Rabboni!”, which means, Teacher!

The Road to Emmaus: the Disciples Do Not Recognize Jesus at First

For another incredible support of this theology, the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus are perfect. They do not recognize Jesus at first. But as Jesus unfolds to them how He fulfilled all the law and prophets, their hearts progressively burned. Of course, in the ultimate Eucharist, their eyes are opened, the separation of the Body and Blood of Christ. Too, can we not see the Church journeying alongside the Jews--the Church imaging the New Mystical Body of Christ, the Risen Christ, who embodies the elements of Old transformed and renewed into the New Testament fulfillments, and the Jews imaging the disciples on the road to Emmaus who as of yet, do not recognize their New Savior--and showing how She is progressively fulfilling the law and prophets in her History, even as Jesus is opening up to the disciples how He fulfilled all the Old Testament in His self! Progressively, too, the Jews' hearts burn with fervor as they recognize more and more the history of their covenant in a spiritual form being filled up in the Gentiles and the Catholic Church. Finally, at the apex, when the Body and Blood of the Church is poured and separated in the Martyrdom of Antichrist, fulfilling the outpouring of the Jewish blood in the Maccabean persecution, the eyes of the Jews' are opened: "Were not our hearts burning within us!"