Dear brothers and sisters,

I celebrate the Eucharist here among you with a grateful heart. Thanks be to God for this gift, and thank you for your warm welcome!

On this third Sunday of Easter, the Lord has spoken to us through the Gospel about the disciples on the road to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35).  Let us allow ourselves to be illuminated by this word of life.

Two of the Lord’s disciples, with broken and sad hearts, set out from Jerusalem to return to the village of Emmaus.  They had seen the death of Jesus, whom they had faithfully followed.  They were returning home disappointed and disheartened.  On the road, they were “talking with each other about all these things that had happened” (Lk 24:14).  They were compelled to speak of it, to recount once more what they had seen and to share what they had experienced.  In doing so, however, they risked becoming prisoners of their grief and closed off to hope.

Brothers and sisters, in this opening scene of the Gospel, I see a reflection of the history of Angola, of this beautiful yet wounded country, which hungers and thirsts for hope, peace and fraternity.  Indeed, the conversation along the road between the two disciples, who reflected with sorrow on what had happened to their Master, brings to mind the pain that has marked your country: a long civil war with its aftermath of enmities and divisions, of squandered resources and poverty.

When one is long immersed in a history so characterized by pain, one can risk losing hope and remaining paralyzed by discouragement, just like the two disciples.  Indeed, they were walking, yet they remained fixated on the events of three days earlier when they saw the death of Jesus.  They conversed with each other, but without hope of a solution. They continued to speak of what had happened, with the weariness of those who do not know how to start afresh or whether it is even possible to do so.

Dear friends, the Good News of the Lord, even for us today, is precisely this: he is alive, he has risen, and he walks beside us as we journey along the path of suffering and bitterness, opening our eyes so that we may recognize his work and granting us the grace to start afresh and rebuild the future.

The Lord walks alongside the two disappointed disciples, who are running out of hope.  As their travelling companion, he helps them to piece together the fragments of that story, to look beyond their pain, to discover that they are not alone on the journey and that a future, still inhabited by the God of love, awaits them.  When he stops to dine with them, sits at the table and breaks the bread, then “their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Lk 24:31).

Here, too, is the path laid out for us, for you, dear Angolan brothers and sisters, to begin anew.  On the one hand, there is the certainty that the Lord accompanies us and has compassion on us, and on the other, the commitment that he asks from us.

We experience the Lord’s companionship above all in our relationship with him, in prayer, in listening to his word that sets our hearts ablaze like it did to the hearts of the two disciples.  This takes place especially in the celebration of the Eucharist.  It is here that we encounter God.  For this reason, we must always be vigilant regarding those forms of traditional religiosity that certainly belong to the roots of your culture, but at the same time risk confusing and mixing magical and superstitious elements that do not aid your spiritual journey.  Remain faithful to what the Church teaches, trust your pastors, and keep your gaze fixed on Jesus, who reveals himself in the word and in the Eucharist.  In both we experience that the risen Lord walks beside us and, united to him, we too overcome the “deaths” that besiege us and live as those who have “risen.”

This certainty that we are not alone on the journey includes a generous commitment on our part to sooth wounds and rekindle hope.  Indeed, if the two disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, this means that we too must recognize him in this way: not only in the Eucharist, but wherever there is a life that becomes like broken bread, wherever someone offers himself or herself as a gift of compassion like him.

The history of your country, the ongoing difficult consequences you endure, the social and economic problems and the various forms of poverty call for the presence of a Church that knows how to walk alongside you and how to heed the cry of its children.  A Church that, with the light of the word and the nourishment of the Eucharist, knows how to rekindle lost hope.  A Church made up of people like you who give of themselves just as Jesus gave of himself in the breaking of the bread for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Angola needs bishops, priests, missionaries, men and women religious, and lay people who carry in their hearts the desire to “break” their own lives and give them to others, to commit themselves to mutual love and forgiveness, to build spaces of fraternity and peace, and to perform acts of compassion and solidarity towards those most in need.

Through the grace of the risen Christ, we can become like this broken bread that transforms reality.  Just as the Eucharist reminds us that we are one body and one spirit, united to the one Lord, so it is possible to build together a country where old divisions are overcome once and for all, where hatred and violence disappear, and where the scourge of corruption is healed by a new culture of justice and sharing.  Only in this way will a promising future be possible, especially for the many young people who have lost hope.

Brothers and sisters, today we need to look to the future with hope and to build the hope of the future. Do not be afraid to do so! The risen Jesus, who walks the path with you and breaks himself as bread for you, encourages you to be witnesses of his Resurrection and protagonists of a new humanity and a new society.

On this journey, dear friends, you can count on the Pope’s closeness and prayers!  But I too know I can count on you, and I thank you!  I entrust you to the protection and intercession of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Muxima, that she may always sustain you in faith, hope and charity.