April 5, 2026
The Resurrection of the Lord
The Mass of
Easter Day
Lectionary:
42
Reading
1
Peter
proceeded to speak and said:
“You know what has happened all over Judea,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him.
We are witnesses of all that he did
both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.
This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,
not to all the people, but to us,
the witnesses chosen by God in advance,
who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
He commissioned us to preach to the people
and testify that he is the one appointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead.
To him all the prophets bear witness,
that everyone who believes in him
will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Responsorial
Psalm
R.
(24) This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Let the house of Israel say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
“The right hand of the LORD has struck with power;
the right hand of the LORD is exalted.
I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.”
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
R. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading
2
Brothers
and sisters:
If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
Or
Brothers
and sisters:
Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?
Clear out the old yeast,
so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,
inasmuch as you are unleavened.
For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us celebrate the feast,
not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Sequence
- Victimæ paschali laudes
Christians,
to the Paschal Victim
Offer your thankful praises!
A Lamb the sheep redeems;
Christ, who only is sinless,
Reconciles sinners to the Father.
Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous:
The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal.
Speak, Mary, declaring
What you saw, wayfaring.
“The tomb of Christ, who is living,
The glory of Jesus’ resurrection;
bright angels attesting,
The shroud and napkin resting.
Yes, Christ my hope is arisen;
to Galilee he goes before you.”
Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining.
Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!
Amen. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed;
let us then feast with joy in the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
On
the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.
Or
After
the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
And behold, there was a great earthquake;
for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven,
approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.
His appearance was like lightning
and his clothing was white as snow.
The guards were shaken with fear of him
and became like dead men.
Then the angel said to the women in reply,
“Do not be afraid!
I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.
He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said.
Come and see the place where he lay.
Then go quickly and tell his disciples,
‘He has been raised from the dead,
and he is going before you to Galilee;
there you will see him.’
Behold, I have told you.”
Then they went away quickly from the tomb,
fearful yet overjoyed,
and ran to announce this to his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them.
They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.
Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid.
Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee,
and there they will see me.”
Or
at afternoon or evening mass
That
very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus' disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
He asked them,
"What are you discussing as you walk along?"
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,
"Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in these days?"
And he replied to them, "What sort of things?"
They said to him,
"The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over
to a sentence of death and crucified him.
But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in the morning
and did not find his body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels
who announced that he was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb
and found things just as the women had described,
but him they did not see."
And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?"
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, "Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over."
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
"Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?"
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered together
the eleven and those with them who were saying,
"The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!"
Then the two recounted
what had taken place on the way
and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040526.cfm
Commentary on Acts 10:34,37-43; Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians
5:6-8; John 20:1-9 or Luke 24:1-12 (for afternoon Masses, Luke 24:13-35)
Our
Easter celebrations form the heart of our Christian living. Our faith is deeply
rooted and finds its real meaning in the resurrection of Jesus. St Paul says
that, if Christ is not risen, then all our believing is in vain.* It is sad,
then, to find people who make Good Friday and the death of Jesus the climax of
Holy Week. However, attitudes change over time and more and more people have
come to love the Easter Vigil liturgy, especially when it is done well.
Those
Christians who depict the cross without the body of Christ on it are making a
very important point. The cross was the high point of Jesus’ gift of himself to
the Father for our sake, but he is no longer there and it was his entry into
glory with the Father which gives the cross its validity. Otherwise, it would
have been a journey into nothingness.
Because
of the Resurrection, the disciples, who were at first paralysed with fear of
being arrested as accomplices of Jesus, suddenly made a complete turnaround and
began boldly to proclaim that Jesus, who died on the Cross, was alive and with
them. And when, in fact, they were arrested, persecuted and imprisoned, it
became a cause of rejoicing that they were now even more closely related to the
life experience of their Lord, sharing in his sufferings that they might share
in his glory.
A
call for change
Easter, however, is not only concerned with recalling the resurrection of Jesus
or its impact on the first disciples, but also with the meaning of this event
for our own lives and for our faith. The celebration of Easter (and the days of
Holy Week leading up to it) are a call for us to change—and perhaps change
radically—as Jesus’ own disciples changed.
The
sign that we are truly sharing in the risen life of Jesus is that our lives and
our behaviour undergo a constant development. We not only believe, we not only
proclaim, but we do what we believe and what we proclaim.
Proclamation
and witness
The theme of today’s Mass includes both proclamation and witness. In the First
Reading, we see Peter speaking after the baptism of Cornelius and his family,
the first gentile Christians. He is speaking about his own experience and
sharing that experience with the listening crowds. For the true disciple of
Jesus, there is a close and indivisible relationship between experiencing and
proclaiming. Because of Peter’s experience of knowing with utter conviction
that Jesus, who died on the Cross, is now alive, he is so filled with joy that
he simply must share that joy with others—so that it can be theirs, too.
We
find a similar theme in both of the Second Readings (there is a choice of
readings) and the Gospel. Paul was a Pharisee, a dedicated Pharisee and a man of
integrity. He persecuted Christians because he saw in them a dangerous
deviation from the Jewish Law and Jewish traditions. Then he, too, had that
sudden experience when the Risen Jesus revealed himself while Paul was on his
way to Damascus to bring the Christians (whom he saw as heretical Jews) into
line.
That
experience, as we know, brought about a total change in Paul’s life. It gave
him a totally new vision of things and especially of the meaning of Jesus’ life
and message. For the rest of his life, he used all his energies, the same
energies he once used against Christians, to help others—Jews and non-Jews
alike—to know, love and follow Jesus, his Lord.
Empty
tomb
In John’s (and Luke’s) Gospel, we have the experience of the empty tomb as the
sign of Jesus’ resurrection to life. Mary Magdalen saw the stone rolled back
(it was so heavy; who could have managed to do such a thing?) and she went
running to the disciples. Peter and the “other disciple, the one whom Jesus
loved”, went to see for themselves. They ran to the tomb and, although the
“other disciple” got there first, out of deference, he let Peter go in before
him. They saw, they understood, and they believed. Until that moment, John’s
Gospel says:
…for
as yet they did not understand the scripture [the Hebrew testament],
that he must rise from the dead.
The
disciples on the way to Emmaus will also be made to recognize that the positive
meaning of the sufferings of Jesus can be found in the Hebrew Testament for
those who can see and understand (see Luke’s Gospel for the afternoon Masses).
Not
just resuscitation
It is important, however, to be aware that the Resurrection is not simply the
resuscitation of the body of Jesus after he died on the Cross. No one saw the
Resurrection because there was nothing to see. The crucifixion is a
historical event, but the Resurrection is a faith event. The
Risen Jesus enters a completely new way of living; the post-Resurrection texts
all indicate that. He is not recognised at first by even his intimate friends;
he is everywhere that his disciples happen to be, and his new Body—the means of
his being visibly present among us—is the community of his disciples. We are,
quite literally at this time, the Body of Christ.
We
see the beginnings of this in the next part of John’s Gospel that we will read
during the first week of Easter. Peter and the ‘beloved disciple’ went back to
their companions to tell them of their discovery. But Mary Magdalen, from whom
seven demons had gone out, and who was now totally devoted to Jesus as her Lord
and Master, stayed behind. She was distraught. Her beloved Master was not only
dead; his body was now missing. In the tomb she saw two angels, representing
God’s presence, who asked her why she was crying.
A
familiar voice
At that very moment, she turned and saw Jesus but did not recognise him. This
is a constant feature of post-Resurrection apparitions. Jesus is not
recognised; he looks just like an ordinary person, any person. In this case,
Mary thinks he is the gardener, and wonders if he is the one who has taken away
the body of Jesus. When he calls her name, “Mary”, she immediately knows who it
is. Earlier in John’s Gospel Jesus had said:
The
gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his
own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he
goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They
will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know
the voice of strangers.
(John 10:3)
Mary
then begins to cling passionately to Jesus, not wanting to let him go. But she
has to let go—she is clinging to the ‘old’ Jesus. The Risen Jesus is going into
glory with the Father. He will return, but in a very different way. From now on
he will be found in all those who call themselves his disciples and who are
united together as one Body—the Church and all its constituent local churches.
And
Mary, too, runs back to the disciples proclaiming her personal experience:
…[she]
announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he
had said these things to her.
(John 20:18)
The
Gospel doesn’t say that she had ‘seen Jesus’, but that she had “seen the Lord”,
i.e. the Risen Lord. And that is what evangelisation is about: it is not just
the handing on of doctrines, but the sharing with others our experience of
having seen the Lord in our own lives and inviting them to have the same
experience.
The
same mission
The celebration of Easter reminds us that we have the same mission as Peter and
Mary Magdalen and the other disciples of Jesus. First, as the optional Second
Reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians indicates, Easter calls for a
radical conversion, a radical purging on our part. In the celebration of
the Pasch, the Jews used to throw out all the leavened bread they
had and replace it with freshly baked unleavened bread.
Because
of the fermentation process that leavened bread undergoes, yeast was regarded
as a corrupting agent. So Paul tells us that we, too, as we celebrate our Christian
Passover, are to become:
…a
new batch of dough, as you really are unleavened [in other words, free from
all the corrupting influences in our life]. Therefore, let us celebrate
the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
And,
to go back to the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter emphasises
the importance of Jesus’ disciples not only experiencing the joy of their Risen
Master and Lord, but also of sharing that experience and joy with as many
people as possible. It is something we must do also. Not to share our Easter
joy and what it means to us is to leave Easter only half celebrated. For the
true Christian, in fact, every day is an Easter Day lived joyfully in the close
company of the Risen Lord.
Witnesses
Peter says:
God
raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people
but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses…
They
were those who witnessed Jesus’ preaching and healing, his arrest, execution
and death, and also his being raised again to life.
And
so Peter describes them as:
…[we] who
ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
Is
that not something that we, too, do every time we take part in the Eucharist—to
eat and drink with the Risen Jesus? And what message comes from that? Have we
satisfied our Christian responsibility just by being in church on Sunday?
He
commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained
by God as judge of the living and the dead…that everyone who believes in him
receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
There we have our mission.
Putting
it in language that may be more easily understood today, Peter is saying that
Jesus, and the way of life he proposes, is the yardstick by which people are to
measure themselves, and not just as Christians, but as human beings. To attach
oneself totally to the Way of Jesus, a way of Truth and Life, is to bring about
a deep reconciliation with God and with all our brothers and sisters. It is to
bring freedom, justice and peace into our world, and prepare us for the day
when we all become one in our Creator God, the Father of Truth and
Compassionate Love.
______________________________________________
*The Gospel was essentially written backwards. The trigger to
its being written was the experience that Jesus the Rabbi had risen from the
dead and was with God in glory. That experience, in turn, led to reflection on
what at first seemed tragedy, disaster and failure—namely, the trial, suffering
and death of Jesus. The Resurrection threw a totally different light on the
Passion and Death of Jesus and led to a very different understanding of what
was happening.
These
reflections, in their turn, led to a reconsideration of the public life of
Jesus—his teaching and what was now seen to be part of that teaching: his
healing, forgiveness of sinners, the expulsion of evil spirits and giving life
to the dead.
Last
of all, came the stories about the origins of Jesus, the Infancy Narratives.
The
longest part of Jesus’ life, between his childhood and the beginning of his
Public Life, remained totally hidden to us, apparently not relevant to the main
story.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/eabc011/
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Easter Sunday
of the Resurrection
Let us invoke
the Holy Spirit
Lord Jesus Christ, today
Your light shines
in us, source of life
and joy. Send
the Spirit of love and truth,
so that, like Mary Magdalene, Peter and John, we too
may discover and interpret in the light of the Word, the
signs of Your divine presence in our world. May we welcome
these signs in faith that we may always
live in the joy of Your presence
among us, even when all seems to be shrouded in the darkness of sadness and
evil.
The Gospel Reading –
John 20:
1-9
A Key to the Reading:
For John the Evangelist, the resurrection of Jesus is the decisive
moment in the process of His glorification, inextricably linked with the first phase of this
glorification, His passion and death.
The event of the resurrection is
not described in the spectacular and apocalyptic details of the synoptic Gospels.
For John, the life of the Risen One
asserts itself silently, in the discreet
and irresistible power
of the Spirit.
The state of the faith of the disciples
is announced, "While it was still dark" and begins through the vision of the material signs that recall
the Word of God.
Jesus is the great protagonist of the story,
but He does not appear personally.
The Text:
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala
came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So,
she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and
told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know
where they put him." So, Peter and the other
disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple
ran faster than Peter and arrived at the
tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial
cloths there, but did not go in. When
Simon Peter arrived
after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial
cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate
place. Then the other disciple
also went in, the one who
had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had
to rise from the dead.
A Subdivision of the Text for a Better
Understanding:
•
Verse 1: introduction and events prior to the situation;
•
Verse 2: Mary’s
reaction and the first announcement of the newly discovered
fact;
•
Verses 3-5: the
immediate reaction of the disciples and the interaction among them.
•
Verses 6-7: verification of the event announced by Mary;
•
Verses 8-9: the faith of the other disciple and its
relationship to the Sacred Scriptures.
A Moment
of Interior and Exterior Silence
to open our hearts
and make room within for the Word of God:
•
A slow re-reading of the whole passage;
•
I too am in the garden: the empty sepulchre
is before my eyes;
•
I allow Mary Magdalene’s words
to echo within me
•
I too run with her, Peter and the other disciple;
•
I allow myself to be immersed in the joyful wonder of
faith in Jesus Christ, even though, like them, I do not see Him with my bodily eyes.
The Gift of the Word to Us
•
Chapter
20 in John: This is
quite a fragmented text where it is clear that the editor has intervened several
times to put the stress
on some themes
and to unify the various
texts received previously from (at least three) preceding sources.
•
The
day after the Sabbath: it is
"the first day of the week" and, in Christian circles, inherits
the sacredness of the Jewish
Sabbath. For Christians it is the first day of the new week, the beginning of the new time, the memorial day of the resurrection called "the day of the Lord" (dies Domini).
Here and in
verse 19, the Evangelist adopts an expression that is already traditional for Christians (e.g.: Mk 16:2,
9; Acts
20:7) and is older than the expression that later became
characteristic of the first evangelization: "the third day" (e.g.: Lk 24:7, 46; Acts 10:40; 1Cor
15:4).
•
Mary
Magdalene: This is the
same woman as the one present at the foot of the cross with other women (19:
25). Here she seems to be alone, but the words in verse 2 ("we do not know") show that the original story, worked on by the Evangelist, told of more women, as is true of the other Gospels (cf. Mk 16:1- 3; Mt 28:1; Lk 23:55-24:1).
However, the synoptics (cf. Mk
16: 1; Lk 24: 1), do not specify
the reason for her
visit to the sepulchre, seeing
that it implied
that the rite of burial had already been carried out (19:40); perhaps,
the only thing missing is the funereal lamentation (cf. Mk 5:38). In any
case, the fourth Evangelist reduces to a minimum the story of the discovery of the empty sepulchre so as to focus the attention of the reader on what comes
after.
•
Early, while it was still dark:
Mark (16:2) says something different, but from both we understand that it was the very early hours
of the morning, when the light
is very weak and still pale. Perhaps
John stresses the lack of light in order to contrast symbolically the darkness - lack of
faith and light - welcoming of the
Gospel, of the resurrection.
•
The stone had been taken away from the tomb: the Greek work is generic: the stone had been "taken away" or "removed" (different from: Mk 16: 3-4).
The verb to "take away" recalls Jn 1: 29: the Baptist points Jesus out as “Lamb who takes
away the sin of the world." Perhaps
the Evangelist wishes
to recall the fact that this stone, "taken away," flung away from the sepulcher, is the
material sign that death and sin have been "taken away" by the resurrection
of Jesus?
•
So
she ran and went to Peter and the other disciple: Mary
Magdalene runs to those who share
her love for Jesus and her suffering for His atrocious death, now made worse
by this new discovery. She turns to them, perhaps
because they were the only ones who had not run away with the others and remained in contact with each other (cf. 19: 15, 26 - 27). She wants to share at least with them
this final pain of the outrage committed against His body.
We see how
Peter and the "beloved disciple" and Mary Magdalene are characterized
by a special love that unites them with Jesus: it is indeed reciprocal love that makes
them capable of sensing the presence of the loved person.
•
The other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved: is someone
who appears only in
this Gospel and only beginning with chapter 13,
when he exhibits great intimacy with Jesus and deep understanding with
Peter (13: 23-25). He appears at every
decisive moment of the passion and of the resurrection of Jesus but remains anonymous
and many theories
have been advanced
on his identity. He is
probably the anonymous disciple of the Baptist who follows Jesus together
with Andrew (1: 35, 40). Since the
fourth Gospel never
speaks of John the apostle and keeping in mind that this Gospel recounts
details clearly known to an eyewitness, the "disciple" has been
identified with John the apostle. The fourth Gospel has always been attributed to him even though
he may not have materially written it, yet
the origin of this particular tradition is that this
Gospel and other
writings are attributed to John. This
also explains why he is someone
who is somewhat idealized, "The one whom Jesus loved."
It is clear that this is an
addition, not from the apostle, who would not have dared boast of having
such a close relationship with the Lord, but from His disciples who wrote most of the Gospel and who coined
this expression after reflection on the clearly privileged love between Jesus and him (cf. 13: 25; 21: 4,
7). Where we read the simpler expression "the other disciple" or
"the disciple," obviously the editors did not make the same addition.
They have taken
the Lord out of the tomb: these words, which recur in verses 13 and 15, show that Mary was afraid that body-snatchers had taken the body, a
thing common then, so much so that the Roman Emperor had to promulgate
severe decrees to check this phenomenon. In Matthew (28: 11-15),
the chief priests
use this possibility to discredit the resurrection of Jesus and, eventually, to justify the lack of
intervention on the part of the soldiers who guarded the tomb.
•
The Lord:
the title "Lord" implies an acknowledgement of divinity and evokes
divine omnipotence. That is why this term was used by Christians for the risen
Jesus. Indeed,
the fourth Evangelist uses this term only in Paschal stories (see also 20: 13).
•
We do not know where they have laid Him: these words recall what happened
to Moses, whose place of burial was unknown (Deut 34: 10). Another implicit reference is to the words of Jesus Himself
when He says that it is impossible to know where He is going (7: 11, 22; 8: 14, 28, 42; 13: 33; 14: 1-5; 16: 5).
•
They both ran, but the other disciple
outran Peter…but he did not go in: This passage shows the anxiety that these disciples
were living through. The fact that the "other
disciple" stopped is more than just a gesture of politeness or respect towards
someone older; it is the tacit acknowledgement that Peter, within
the apostolic group,
held a place of pre-eminence, even though this is not stressed. It is, therefore, a sign of communion. This
gesture could also be a literary
device to move from the event in terms of faith in the
resurrection to the following and peak moment in the story.
It is also possible
that it shows hesitation or fear. As their faith was under strain
at this moment, there may have been a hesitation when confronted with
confirming the situation one way or the other. Would there be something
to further chip at his faith or not? It could be a confirmation of what they
had hoped, or nothing at all.
•
The linen cloths lying and the napkin…rolled up in a place by itself: although the other disciple did not go in, he had already seen
something. Peter, crossing the entrance of the sepulchre, discovers the proof
that no theft of the body took place: no thief would have wasted time to unfold
the body, spread the cloths in an orderly fashion (on the ground would be
translated better by "spread out" or "laid carefully
on the floor") and then to roll
up the napkin in a place
by itself. Such an operation
would have been complicated also because
the oils with which the body had been anointed
(especially myrrh) acted like
glue, causing the cloths to stick perfectly and solidly to the body, almost as
what happened to mummies. Besides, the napkin is folded; the Greek verb can also mean
"rolled," or it could
indicate that that piece of light cloth
had, in large part, preserved the form of the face over which it had
been placed, almost like a mortuary mask.
The cloths are the same as those cited in Jn 19: 40.
Everything is in order in the sepulchre, even though the body
of Jesus is not
there, and Peter was well able to see inside the sepulchre because the day was breaking. Different from Lazarus
(11:
44), then, Christ
rises, abandoning completely
His funerary trappings. Ancient
commentators note that, in fact, Lazarus had to use the
cloths again for his definitive burial, while Christ
had no further use of them because He was not to die again (cf. Rm 6: 9).
•
Peter…saw…the other disciple…saw and believed: at
the beginning of the story, Mary Magdalene also
"saw." Although some translations use the same verb,
the original text uses three different verbs (theorein for Peter; blepein for the other disciple and Mary Magdalene; idein, here, for the other
disciple), allowing us to understand that there is a growth
in the spiritual depth of this
"seeing" that, in fact, culminates in the faith of the other disciple.
The anonymous disciple had certainly
not seen anything
other than what
Peter had
observed. Perhaps he interprets what he sees differently from others because
of the special relationship of love he had with Jesus (Thomas’ experience is emblematic, 29: 24-29). In any case, as indicated by the tense of the Greek
verb, his is still an initial faith,
so much so that he cannot find ways
of sharing this experience with Mary Magdalene or Peter or any
of the other disciples (there
is no further reference to this).
However, for
the fourth Evangelist the double "see and believe" is quite meaningful
and refers exclusively to faith in the resurrection of the (cf. 20: 29), because it was impossible to believe truly
before the Lord had died and risen (cf. 14: 25-26; 16: 12-15). The double vision-faith, then, characterizes
the whole of this chapter, and "the beloved
disciple" is presented
as a model of faith who
succeeds in understanding the truth about God through material
(cf. also 21: 7).
•
As
yet they did not know the Scripture: this
obviously refers to all the other disciples. Even for those who had lived close to Jesus, it was difficult to believe
in Him. For them, as for us as well, the only gateway that allows us to cross the threshold of authentic faith is knowledge of the Scriptures (cf. Lk 24: 26-27; 1Cor 15: 34; Acts 2 :27-31) in the light of the events of the resurrection.
Questions to Direct Our
Reflection and Its
Practice
•
What, in the concrete, does it mean for us "to believe in Jesus the Risen One"? What
difficulties do we encounter? Does the resurrection solely concern Jesus or is
it really the foundation of our faith?
•
The relationship that we see
between Peter, the other disciple and Mary Magdalene is clearly one of
great communion in Jesus. In what
persons, realities, or institutions do we today find this same understanding of love and the
same "common union" founded on Jesus? Where can we read the concrete
signs of the great love for the Lord and "His own" that inspired all the disciples?
•
We see three
levels of growth in faith here: Mary, who sees
but does not go deeper and
instead asks for help to learn more, the other disciple, who is energetic and
enthusiastic, yet stops short of totally being immersed in the truth, and Peter, who goes in entirely, to be fully involved in the truth
within. These can represent different levels in the growth of one's faith as well. Where am
I in this and who best represents my approach to being fully involved in the Lord?
Let Us Pray Asking
for Grace and Praising God
A Hymn Taken from the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians (paraphrase of 1: 17- 23).
The God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father
of glory, may give you a spirit
of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your
hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which
He has called you, what are the riches
of His glorious inheritance in the saints,
and what is the
immeasurable greatness of His power in us who believe, according to the working
of His great might which He accomplished in Christ when He raised Him from the
dead and made Him sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority
and power and dominion, and above every
name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and He has put all things under His feet and has
made Him the head over all things for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Closing Prayer
The liturgical context is of
great importance in praying this Gospel and the event of the resurrection of Jesus, which is the hub of our faith and of our
Christian life. The sequence that characterizes the Eucharistic liturgy
of today and of the whole
week leads us to praise the Father
and the Lord Jesus.
Christians,
to the Paschal Victim Offer sacrifice and praise.
The sheep are ransomed
by the Lamb; and Christ, the
undefiled
has sinners
to His Father reconciled.
Death with life contended:
Combat
strangely ended! Life’s own Champion, slain, Yet lives to reign.
Tell us Mary:
say what you see upon the way. The
tomb the living
did enclose; I saw Christ’s glory as He rose!
The
angels there attesting; Shroud with grave-clothes resting. Christ, my hope, has
risen:
He goes before you into Galilee.
That Christ
is truly risen
from the dead we
know.
Victorious king, your mercy show.
We may conclude
our prayer also with this lively invocation by a contemporary poet, Marco Guzzi:
Love, Love, Love!
I wish to feel,
live and express
all this Love, Which is a joyful commitment in the
world and a happy contact with the others.
Only You free me, only You release me.
And the snows fall to water
the greenest
of valleys in creation.
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