Saint Cleopas

Cleopas is one of the two disciples of Emmaus, and his is the most beautiful scene in the Gospel of Luke. It’s Easter day. Two disciples are leaving Jerusalem for a village, disheartened, talking about what has happened. A man falls in beside them and asks what they’re discussing; they stop, “looking sad,” and tell him everything — including the phrase that holds all their disappointment: “we had hoped.” He walks with them and explains the Scriptures. When they reach the village he acts as if he’s going on, and they are the ones who hold him back: “stay with us, for it is nearly evening.” At the table he breaks the bread, and in that moment they recognize him; and he vanishes. Of those two, Luke names only one: Cleopas. Nothing is known about the other — and some have noted that the empty place beside Cleopas belongs, in a way, to whoever is reading. The name appears in ancient texts in several forms — Clopas, Alphaeus, Cleophas — and scholars have argued for centuries over how many distinct people they are. One tradition makes Clopas the brother of Saint Joseph, and so Jesus’s uncle, and the father of some of the “brothers” named in the Gospels. The Roman Martyrology remembers him on September 25. If your name is Cleopas, today is your name day.