Reflections on the readings for Easter Sunday-Mass of Easter Day (April 17, 2022): ACTS 10:34,37-43; PS 118:1-2,16-17,22-23; COL 3:1-4; Sequence -- Victimae paschali laudes; JN 20:1-9
MISSIO offers “Preaching Mission,” as a homily help, providing connections to mission from the readings of Sundays, Feast Days and Holy Days.
IIt was Peter who was chosen by our Lord to receive the Keys of the Kingdom, to carry on His ministry as the first among the Apostles.
Today we hear in the Gospel of St. John how St. Mary of Magdala went to Christ’s tomb early on that first Easter Sunday morning. Stunned to see that the stone had been moved, she ran to let Peter and John know what had happened. They both rushed there to see for themselves. John got there first, but he waited and did not go inside. “When Simon Peter arrived … 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 … and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that He had to rise from the dead” (John 20:6-9).
Here we find three disciples of Jesus who truly loved and believed in Him react in different ways to their Easter morning experience. We cannot know what they thought, but we do know that only John, while not understanding everything, did immediately believe that Jesus had indeed risen. It was John who was Christ’s Beloved Disciple. And, at Jesus’ direction as He hung on the cross, John had been entrusted with the care of the Blessed Virgin Mary and she, in turn, had accepted him as her own son. As for the others, Mary of Magdala would later meet and talk with Jesus in the garden outside the sepulcher. That evening, Christ appeared to Peter, John and most of the Apostles. They would see His wounds and listen to His words. They would know that all He had told them during His ministry had come to pass through His death and Resurrection. And it was Peter who was chosen by our Lord to receive the Keys of the Kingdom, to carry on His ministry as the first among the Apostles -- the same Peter who had so many human failings, and even fulfilled our Lord’s words at the Last Supper that he would deny Him before the cock crowed. Peter, John, Mary of Magdala, and every single follower of Christ, then or now, receives a mission to accomplish. We are given the Divine grace, the guidance, the faith to do all God asks of us. But we need to accept what He wants of us, not just once and for all but throughout our lives. On this most holy day, let us thank God and ask Him to help us always say, “Yes!”