from The Shattering of Loneliness, by Erik Varden: 

Evil is illogical. I feel at such times like the wanderers to Emmaus, who succumbed to momentary paralysis: ‘they stood still, looking sad’ (Luke 24.17). Their story, though, goes on. The stranger in their midst pulls them along, draws them out. He listens, challenges, explains. Without the wanderers’ conscious knowledge, he subverts their grief. He invests it with sense. At table, he transubstantiates it. What seemed like loss turns out to have been gain; apparent defeat reveals its face as victory; loneliness thaws before a presence that sets hearts on fire. The two who, earlier, stood listless, leaden on the road, unable to go further, run to Jerusalem, bursting with new understanding, impatient to share it.