Vigils Reading – 3rd Sunday of Easter

From a commentary by a

12th CENTURY AUTHOR

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Their eyes were opened and they knew him when he broke the bread.

When bread is broken, it is in a way diminished, or “emptied”. By

breaking understand the virtue of humility, by which Christ – even he who is the

bread of life – broke, diminished, and emptied himself. And by emptying

himself he gave us knowledge of himself.

The hidden Wisdom of the Father, and a treasure whole and concealed –

what are they? Break your bread for the hungry, Lord, the bread that is yourself,

so that human eyes may be opened, and it may not be regarded as a sin for us to

long to be like you, knowing good and evil. Let him who from the beginning

wished to strive after or grope for you in your undiminished state, know you

through the breaking of bread.

Break yourself that we may learn to break our own selves, for you are not

known through the breaking of bread. Balaam heard the words of God and saw

visions of the Almighty, but he fell with open eyes because he did not know the

Lord through the breaking of bread. It is the same today: you see many studying

the Scriptures, teaching in cathedrals, preaching in churches, but their works do

not agree with their words. With words they claim to have a knowledge of God,

but with their deeds they deny it, because God cannot be known except through

the breaking of the bread.

And in fact, the Lord became our bread and we are his bread. He

condescended to eat his bread with sweat on his brow, so that we might eat with

joy. If you want to know him, break yourself as he did, because anyone who

claims to abide in Christ ought to live as he lived. The kingdom of God lies not in

words, but in power.

Break yourself, then, by the labor of obedience, by the humiliation of

repentance. Bear in your body the marks of Jesus Christ by accepting the

condition of a servant, not of a superior. And when you have emptied yourself,

you will know the Lord through the breaking of bread. True humility opens our

eyes, “breaking” and diminishing the other virtues which might blind us with a

spirit of pride, and teaching us that of ourselves we are nothing. And when we

humble ourselves by self-contempt, so much the more do we grow in the

knowledge of God.