Our pastor today mentioned that they failed to recognize Jesus earlier because not only were "their eyes prevented from recognizing Him," but they had been expecting Jesus to be something other than He was. They and the other disciples had thought of themselves as leaders in a Messiah's great military conquest. They had even argued amongst one another as to whom was the greatest among them. Instead, His trial and death through them in a panic, and it was only after His resurrection when He revealed Himself to them that they began to understand.
We talked about this a bit in the adult faith formation class after mass. So often, we shy away from prayer (and especially confession) because we are afraid of what Jesus might ask of us. We are so certain of what He expects of us, that we don't take the time to actually listen. Jesus has received a poor reputation from Puritan-like teachings which have come to make people think that following Jesus means giving up pleasure, and thus Jesus gets avoided because we don't want to give everything up ... or at least, not just yet. However, we don't actually give Jesus to have a voice in the matter. Sure, their are some destructive pleasures for which Jesus might provide a warning, but He knows us for our imperfections and loves us anyway.
He will find us in the seedy out-of-the-way places that we hide ourselves, and we will find that our hearts will be afire in recognition of who He truly is.