READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Acts of the Apostles ACTS 10:34A, 37-43
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."
Second reading from the letter to Colossians COL 3:1-4
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.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to John JN 20:1-9
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.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER Easter teaches us that believers do not linger at graveyards, for they are called to go forth to meet the Living One. How many times, once we have encountered the Lord, do we return to the dead, digging up regrets, reproaches, hurts and dissatisfactions, without letting the Risen One change us? Dear brothers and sisters: let us put the Living One at the centre of our lives. Let us seek him, let us allow ourselves to be sought out by him, let us seek him in all things and above all things. And with him, we will rise again. (Homily, Easter Vigil, 20 April 2019)
FAUSTI - The big surprise on the morning of the new Easter, is the empty tomb. How is it that the Lord is not where he has been placed, where everyone is or will be placed forever? Mary cannot understand. She runs to announce the disappearance of Jesus. She thinks they stole Him. She still doesn't understand that love conquers death. Mary doesn't talk about the "Body" of Jesus, but the "Lord". She ignores that they didn't "take" the Lord out of the tomb. He is the one who took the stone from the tomb, and for ever and ever. Mary thinks that the enemies have placed Him elsewhere. The linen stretched out, with the shroud apart, are the signs that the Lord is not there and has not been stolen. Seeing this, the beloved disciple believes in Jesus, Lord of life, even without having seen Him. He is the prototype of those who, after him, will believe in Jesus without seeing Him, through the signs told by the evangelist himself (vv 30-31).John, knowing that he is the last among those who have seen Jesus, declares the importance of "believing without seeing". This "other" disciple sees with the heart. Love is the principle of faith, which gives life. The connection between seeing and believing means that faith, far from being blind, is an open eye on reality. Nothing is said about Peter. One can suppose, without violence to the text, that the author wants to show in him the objective aspect of faith: the tomb is empty and the Body was not stolen. In the beloved disciple, instead, he highlights the subjective aspect of faith. Love "sees" the signs and "believes in the Risen Jesus, without having seen Him. In Mary, finally, followed by the other two disciples and Thomas, the founding experience reserved for those who transmit to us the announcement of the Resurrection is referred to: they see and touch the Risen One. Finally, we come, who believe in their witness. . Fraternity opens us to all people, to the ends of the earth. Every event, unique and unrepeatable, is seen only by those who are close in time and space. However, the word of those who witness it makes it present also to those who listen to it. John 20's theme is the relationship between "seeing and believing" (8-29): one sees a fact and believes what it means. Man is the one who knows how to read reality. Every event is a sign, which is significant only for those who understand it. Faith is not blind: it is intelligence that grasps the meaning of facts and realizes why they are so and not differently. Believing is not credulonry, but the most reasonable reading of reality. The first disciples, contemporaries of Jesus, believe in Him not only because they have seen Him Risen, but also because they have experienced what it means for them that He is Risen. We, who come later, believe in their Word. Accepting their testimony, we see with their eyes. However, whoever believes, whether or not they have seen, has the same experience: they adhere with love to the Risen Lord and live by His Spirit. The promise of the Lord is understandable only after its fulfillment and in the light of His Spirit of Love (14:26). That is why disciples can only believe in the Scriptures and the Word of Jesus after His Resurrection. There always remains a veil on the face of those who read the Scripture, which is eliminated by conversion to Christ the Lord. And this is given to those who have contemplated His Love and love Him. For us, who come after the first who have seen and touched Him, the Gospels and the entire Scripture become like the Body of Christ: they are the sign in which we meet Him and see Him Risen.
Jesuits -The empty tomb shatters man's only certainty, his only remembrance. The word remembrance and tomb is the same in Greek, and even death has the same root. It practically the memory of death that man has. breaks up How is it possible to make the experience of the resurrection: it is not enough that the tomb is empty - it is necessary, if not, the resurrection is not true - but how do I meet the Risen One? And then there is the way to meet Him. And, among other things, the sign of the encounter with the Risen One is a very simple thing. Nietsche thought: "It is not true that Christ is risen, otherwise Christians would have another face". That is, the encounter with the Risen One means to rise again. If you meet with light, you have light; if you meet with fire, you burn; if you meet with water you are wet at least! Thus the encounter with the Risen One makes you resurrect to His life, that is, it is the gift of the Spirit. So the real problem is not so much if Christ is risen - it is clear that he must be risen, if not nothing is true! - but the experience and the encounter that you make with Him through His Word. But in this narration Peter does only one thing: he notes that the tomb is empty. Therefore the objective datum of faith. And he notes that it is empty in an inexplicable way, that is, there are the linen stretched out, it has not been stolen, there is the shroud wrapped on a specific place, we will see what meaning it has, he notes the objective datum. The other disciple instead, a friend of Jesus, the one Jesus loved, seeing the same things, believes that Jesus has risen. So it is underlined that the objective element is not enough, that the tomb is empty, that it is sure that it has not been stolen, so what explanation is there? If no one has taken it away and it's not there! Love is needed to understand the resurrection. If you love someone, you understand that person and you experience who that person is. Since the Resurrection is not a theorem, but an encounter with the Risen Christ, then you can also give a thousand proofs that Christ is risen, but the problem is another, it is not the proof; the only reasonable explanation is that He is risen, but that is not this; the problem is to meet Him and those who love Him always meet Him. He needs little, the sign is enough for him to understand.
That is, entering that tomb is the evangelization of the unconscious. Healing from the memory of death that is within our whole existence and closing it in selfishness and fear! To live a free life in love and communion, full! Then Simon Peter enters the scene. Simon Peter who is the first of the disciples. Why is he the first? Because he is the first who has experienced the Lord who is faithful to me in my infidelity. And therefore he is the first who has understood what makes us disciples, not being good, not being perfect, but it is the gratuitous love of the Lord for me, His fidelity to me that I am unfaithful. So that is why Peter is the first. What makes a person present is love. Even if you have a person in front of you and hate him, you kill him! If a person is absent and you love that person, he is present to you more than any person present! And it occupies your thought, your fantasy, your affection, your love, your action, your life; this is the resurrection: the Lord has overcome death, His love enters into me and I live in His presence and He lives in me and I live in Him. It is not simply the fact that He rose again two thousand years ago; this is fundamental, because if He is not risen, then nothing is true! Of His words, of His promises. But the experience is precisely the experience that you have with any person, that if you love this person He is in you , and if He loves you you are in Him. We have always been in God, because He has always loved us, when we discover His Love, He is also in us and that is why we know Him and live by Him. And so it is our resurrection to encounter Him, and it is represented by this other disciple who is John.
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Acts of the Apostles
ACTS 10:34A, 37-43
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."
Second reading from the letter to Colossians
COL 3:1-4
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.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to John
JN 20:1-9
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.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
Easter teaches us that believers do not linger at graveyards, for they are called to go forth to meet the Living One. How many times, once we have encountered the Lord, do we return to the dead, digging up regrets, reproaches, hurts and dissatisfactions, without letting the Risen One change us? Dear brothers and sisters: let us put the Living One at the centre of our lives. Let us seek him, let us allow ourselves to be sought out by him, let us seek him in all things and above all things. And with him, we will rise again. (Homily, Easter Vigil, 20 April 2019)
FAUSTI -
RispondiEliminaThe big surprise on the morning of the new Easter, is the empty tomb.
How is it that the Lord is not where he has been placed, where everyone is or will be placed forever?
Mary cannot understand.
She runs to announce the disappearance of Jesus.
She thinks they stole Him.
She still doesn't understand that love conquers death.
Mary doesn't talk about the "Body" of Jesus, but the "Lord".
She ignores that they didn't "take" the Lord out of the tomb. He is the one who took the stone from the tomb, and for ever and ever. Mary thinks that the enemies have placed Him elsewhere. The linen stretched out, with the shroud apart, are the signs that the Lord is not there and has not been stolen. Seeing this, the beloved disciple believes in Jesus, Lord of life, even without having seen Him. He is the prototype of those who, after him, will believe in Jesus without seeing Him, through the signs told by the evangelist himself (vv 30-31).John, knowing that he is the last among those who have seen Jesus, declares the importance of "believing without seeing".
This "other" disciple sees with the heart.
Love is the principle of faith, which gives life.
The connection between seeing and believing means that faith, far from being blind, is an open eye on reality.
Nothing is said about Peter. One can suppose, without violence to the text, that the author wants to show in him the objective aspect of faith: the tomb is empty and the Body was not stolen.
In the beloved disciple, instead, he highlights the subjective aspect of faith.
Love "sees" the signs and "believes in the Risen Jesus, without having seen Him.
In Mary, finally, followed by the other two disciples and Thomas, the founding experience reserved for those who transmit to us the announcement of the Resurrection is referred to: they see and touch the Risen One.
Finally, we come, who believe in their witness. .
Fraternity opens us to all people, to the ends of the earth.
Every event, unique and unrepeatable, is seen only by those who are close in time and space.
However, the word of those who witness it makes it present also to those who listen to it. John 20's theme is the relationship between "seeing and believing" (8-29): one sees a fact and believes what it means.
Man is the one who knows how to read reality. Every event is a sign, which is significant only for those who understand it.
Faith is not blind: it is intelligence that grasps the meaning of facts and realizes why they are so and not differently. Believing is not credulonry, but the most reasonable reading of reality.
The first disciples, contemporaries of Jesus, believe in Him not only because they have seen Him Risen, but also because they have experienced what it means for them that He is Risen. We, who come later, believe in their Word.
Accepting their testimony, we see with their eyes.
However, whoever believes, whether or not they have seen, has the same experience: they adhere with love to the Risen Lord and live by His Spirit. The promise of the Lord is understandable only after its fulfillment and in the light of His Spirit of Love (14:26).
That is why disciples can only believe in the Scriptures and the Word of Jesus after His Resurrection. There always remains a veil on the face of those who read the Scripture, which is eliminated by conversion to Christ the Lord. And this is given to those who have contemplated His Love and love Him.
For us, who come after the first who have seen and touched Him, the Gospels and the entire Scripture become like the Body of Christ: they are the sign in which we meet Him and see Him Risen.
Jesuits -The empty tomb shatters man's only certainty, his only remembrance. The word remembrance and tomb is the same in Greek, and even death has the same root.
RispondiEliminaIt practically the memory of death that man has. breaks up
How is it possible to make the experience of the resurrection: it is not enough that the tomb is empty - it is necessary, if not, the resurrection is not true - but how do I meet the Risen One?
And then there is the way to meet Him.
And, among other things, the sign of the encounter with the Risen One is a very simple thing.
Nietsche thought: "It is not true that Christ is risen, otherwise Christians would have another face".
That is, the encounter with the Risen One means to rise again.
If you meet with light, you have light; if you meet with fire, you burn; if you meet with water you are wet at least! Thus the encounter with the Risen One makes you resurrect to His life, that is, it is the gift of the Spirit.
So the real problem is not so much if Christ is risen - it is clear that he must be risen, if not nothing is true! - but the experience and the encounter that you make with Him through His Word.
But in this narration Peter does only one thing: he notes that the tomb is empty. Therefore the objective datum of faith. And he notes that it is empty in an inexplicable way, that is, there are the linen stretched out, it has not been stolen, there is the shroud wrapped on a specific place, we will see what meaning it has, he notes the objective datum.
The other disciple instead, a friend of Jesus, the one Jesus loved, seeing the same things, believes that Jesus has risen. So it is underlined that the objective element is not enough, that the tomb is empty, that it is sure that it has not been stolen, so what explanation is there? If no one has taken it away and it's not there!
Love is needed to understand the resurrection. If you love someone, you understand that person and you experience who that person is. Since the Resurrection is not a theorem, but an encounter with the Risen Christ, then you can also give a thousand proofs that Christ is risen, but the problem is another, it is not the proof; the only reasonable explanation is that He is risen, but that is not this;
the problem is to meet Him and those who love Him always meet Him. He needs little, the sign is enough for him to understand.
That is, entering that tomb is the evangelization of the unconscious.
Healing from the memory of death that is within our whole existence and closing it in selfishness and fear! To live a free life in love and communion, full!
Then Simon Peter enters the scene. Simon Peter who is the first of the disciples. Why is he the first? Because he is the first who has experienced the Lord who is faithful to me in my infidelity.
And therefore he is the first who has understood what makes us disciples, not being good, not being perfect, but it is the gratuitous love of the Lord for me, His fidelity to me that I am unfaithful. So that is why Peter is the first.
What makes a person present is love.
Even if you have a person in front of you and hate him, you kill him! If a person is absent and you love that person, he is present to you more than any person present! And it occupies your thought, your fantasy, your affection, your love, your action, your life; this is the resurrection: the Lord has overcome death, His love enters into me and I live in His presence and He lives in me and I live in Him. It is not simply the fact that He rose again two thousand years ago; this is fundamental, because if He is not risen, then nothing is true! Of His words, of His promises. But the experience is precisely the experience that you have with any person, that if you love this person He is in you , and if He loves you you are in Him. We have always been in God, because He has always loved us, when we discover His Love, He is also in us and that is why we know Him and live by Him.
And so it is our resurrection to encounter Him, and it is represented by this other disciple who is John.