The Stranger Waiting on the Road

"Stay with us, Sir. Night is falling.”

The Stranger Waiting on the Road

It seems that each passing day is getting worse in America and Western Society in general, where night is now falling.

Perversion of every kind now infiltrates the pop culture; the kind of perversion that is increasingly difficult to protect children against.  Lies masquerade as truth.  The dragon of worry and anxiety is keeping us awake nights and many are feeling so alone.

At 9 o’clock EST tonight Canada Free Press (CFP)  is starting an ongoing, every night ‘Nightly Prayer Vigil’ (NPV).

Why 9 o’clock?

What better time to call on the Almighty in prayer when day is done and night is falling?

The Creator knows everything, including that souls on Earth need him most when the day is done and it’s starting to get dark outside.

It helps knowing that while you are praying, others could be praying with you.  It may be just a humble few in the beginning, but there is the possibility that many others may join in over time.

Is it, as naysayers claim,  naive to believe that prayers are answered?
 
“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” -John 5:14-15

Prayer, always good at any time,  is best at the end of each day, as two disciples on the road to Emmaus found out in the most miraculous way a long time ago.

One of now retired Father Victor Brown’s “favorite passages of Scripture”  is about the two disciples of Jesus on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus on that first Easter Sunday afternoon.

“They are despondent over the death of Jesus, especially since they had thought that he was the promised Messiah.  He appears along the road, talks to them, but prevents them from recognizing him.  He asks what they are talking about; in their sorrow, they pour out their disillusionment, their sense of failure at the bursting of their bubble.

“Then, when they have finished their description of their sadness, this stranger with them begins to speak. He begins with Moses and explains all of scripture to them and shows them how it was foretold, and necessary, that the Savior would have to suffer and die for the salvation of the world. By now, they have arrived at the town to which they were going. And a terrific transformation is taking place in their minds, hearts, and emotions. This very well-informed stranger knows his scripture backwards and forwards, and he makes sense.

They want to hear more; they desperately want to believe, to understand, to recover their lost faith and hope. And they say to him one of the simplest and yet most profound prayers in all of sacred history: “Stay with us, Sir. Night is falling.” He stays; they go in to have their supper, in the context of which he takes bread, says the blessing, breaks it, gives it to them, and then vanishes.

It was Jesus! They recognized him in the breaking of the bread. They are as happy in their newfound faith and hope as the formerly crippled man was in his ability to walk and jump. They go hurrying back to Jerusalem to report to the eleven apostles what they had seen and heard. The excitement, the joy, and gladness, the recovered hope—all of this is contained in this wonderful episode which so totally incarnates the spirit of Easter and the gloriously good news: Jesus is risen, Jesus lives!

Thank you for seeking God’s truth.

God bless you. Father Victor Brown., O.P.”

Jesus is still the stranger on the road waiting to be found.

Go out on the road to find him, starting tonight.

Ask him on your knees tonight and every other one to follow: “Stay with us, Sir. Night is falling.”




y Judi McLeod