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Have you ever spent considerable time looking for something that was right in front of you all along? It’s quite amazing how easily we can fail to see the obvious, especially when it is staring at us in the face. Embarrassingly, I have even spent time hunting for my glasses while wearing them.

Our Gospel this Sunday tells a similar tale, specifically of the crestfallen disciples on the road to Emmaus who are debating Christ’s recent execution. Our Lord, risen from the dead, strolls and dialogues with them, slowly leading them to a fuller understanding of himself and kindling their faith. The disciples, for their part, only come to realize who Christ is at the end of their journey.

But why didn’t they recognize Jesus? There are many possible answers, from which we can choose as we please. For instance, it is fully possible that Jesus’ visage was changed substantially by the physical and emotional ordeal of the cross. Both stress and age have a way of altering our appearance. Most of us have had the experience of not recognizing an old friend at first glance, especially after a good deal of time or a significant stressor has passed. If the passing of a decade can make a friend unrecognizable, why not the passing from death to life?

Or perhaps their lack of recognition suggests a deep truth about the glorified body we too hope to inherit in heaven. After all, what will we look like in heaven? Will we be old, or young? Teens, 20s, 30s, or older and wizened with age? Mystics who have been granted visions of people in heaven say they’re at once both youthful and sage, ancient and new. Jesus likely looked both youthful and eternal. Christ in his glory points toward this truth: We will both be unrecognizable and recognizable in heaven, in both cases for the better.

It is also possible that mindset plays a significant role. We see what we want to see and miss what we’re not looking for. Our capacity to miss the truth hidden in plain sight, like me hunting for my glasses while wearing them or missing the ketchup in the fridge, is legendary. Consider that the disciples just watched as their leader, mentor, friend and Messiah was brutally executed. Such circumstances are likely to produce significant brain fog. Like the disciples, once we convince ourselves something is the case (e.g., there is no ketchup in the fridge), we become incapable of seeing it. It is their certainty that “Jesus is dead” and their sorrow that blind them. Notice how their eyes are downcast. Their vision is boxed in by grief and more specifically, the expectation of failure.

One of the fascinating aspects of this passage is how it functioned in the early church, namely as an explanation of how e come to a deeper understanding of Christ in the Mass. Much like the healing of the blind man at the pool of Siloam gave early Christians a template for understanding the process of conversion and coming to faith in Christ, the road to Emmaus gives us a blueprint for the Mass in the early church. There is an initial encounter with Christ obscured by sin, a repentant moment, then the reading and explanation of the Scriptures, and then finally a liturgy of the Eucharist, where the Lord is made known in the breaking of the bread.

All this raises a question: If each Mass is our walk with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, are we able to recognize him in our midst? Often, like the disciples, a good deal of our answer to this question depends on our mindset going in and what we “expect to see.” If we come to Mass expecting entertainment or a transactional experience, we’ll likely miss Our Lord and leave unchanged. Yet, if we come to make a gift of ourselves in worship and thanksgiving, if we come expecting to encounter Christ, then we will certainly find him.

Often, only a simple change of mindset reveals Christ the truth hidden in plain sight. It can be as easy as reading the Scripture readings beforehand or getting to Mass early to spend time preparing to meet Jesus. Then, to our amazement, we’ll hear Christ speaking to us in his word, nourishing us with his body and blood, present in the young and ancient members of the congregation and the glorified disguise of the sacraments, or as the 19th-century English poet Jesuit Father Gerard M. Hopkins put it: “Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men’s faces.” Like the disciples, our hearts will be set ablaze by the encounter, and we too will be sent out to proclaim the good news to the many friends and family bearing God’s image who we will meet along the way.