A story was told in antiquity of a traveler name Proculus on his way to Rome who encounters a stranger. At the time, Rome was in turmoil, because its founder and first king, Romulus had been killed. As Proculus walks with the stranger, the man reveals to Proculus the “secrets of Rome” which amount to a plan for Rome to conquer and rule the world. Proculus (whose name means “the proclaimer”) realizes that the stranger is in face either the resurrected Romulus, or some spirit or apparition of the king, and goes on to proclaim what he has learned. Thus, Rome’s future unfolds.
About the 1940s another story was told about Mother Cabrini, a 19th century Italian nun who had been sent by Pope Leo XIII to New York in 1889 to work among Italian immigrants there. She was renowned for her work among the poor, founding orphanages, and championing immigrants. In 1946, Pius XII made her a saint (the first American citizen to be made a saint). Around that time, a legend started circulating around Kingston, NY about an elderly woman hitch hiker who was picked up by a driver. It’s not clear what they talked about, but it later became clear to the driver that the hitch hiker was Mother Cabrini, who had founded the nearby Sacred Heart Orphanage.
Both of these stories fit into a category of urban legend called “the Vanishing hitch hiker.”
The story of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus that we just heard from St. Luke’s Gospel also fits into this category of story, this unusual genre. And Christians might find themselves asking what’s different about this story? What distingushes the resurrection appearance of Jesus all those years ago from the legends of vanishing hitch hikers? Can we say for sure that Jesus isn’t just another vanishing hitch hiker?
It’s interesting to note that St. Luke makes two very deliberate points in telling this story. First, Luke is precise about how Jesus made himself known to the disciples before he vanished. He did it by taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, and sharing it with those who gathered with him. These are not incidental details; they are meant to tell us how Jesus would always be known to those who gather in his name. And the church holds that this pattern has the same effect every time we gather, take bread, bless it, break it, and share it in Christ’s name.
Second, St. Luke tells us very specifically that after revealing himself to those at the table, “then he vanished from their sight.” He vanished from their sight. The specifics are important here, again. Jesus vanished from their sight: he did not vanish altogether. Far from it. Since Jesus would henceforth always be present and always be known wherever, in his name, the church takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and shares it.
As vanishing hitch hikers go, Jesus alone remains truly present in the world, although he vanished from our sight long ago. But he has never vanished from our lives. And he never will!
Notes for a sermon preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
26 April 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia
Mother Cabrini