And they said one to another, Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?
All Commentaries on Luke 24:32 Go To Luke 24
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And they said one to another, Did not our Hearts burn within us? This was a new and certain proof that Christ was alive from the dead. For Christ taught not as Aristotle, Plato, and the philosophers, but so as to inflame the hearts of his hearers with divine love. Let then all teachers and interpreters of Holy Scripture imitate their Master, and seek not only to enlighten the understandings of those who attend upon their teaching, but to kindle the love of God in their hearts as well. Let them not be content with being as the Cherubim, but be also as the Seraphim. Let them be as S. Francis and his disciple S. Bonaventura, who became known as the "Seraphic Doctor."
So David wrote, "Thy word is very pure" (ignitum, Vulgate), Psalm 119:140; and Solomon: "Every word of God is pure," Proverbs 30:5; and Moses: "From His right hand went a fiery law," Deuteronomy 32:2.
So also Christ. declared, "I am come to send fire on the earth." Luke 12:49. Thus the Baptist "was a burning and a shining light," S. John 5:35; and Elias the prophet "stood up as fire, and his word burned like a lamp," Sirach 48:1. Let us be, each one, an Ignatius, a burning and fiery disciple and preacher of Christ, so that the words of the prophet may be true of us, "Their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps." "They ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning."
