Fr Kevin Kilgore

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Gospel: John 20: 11-18

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping.
And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
and saw two angels in white sitting there,
one at the head and one at the feet
where the Body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “They have taken my Lord,
and I don’t know where they laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?”
She thought it was the gardener and said to him,
“Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”
which means Teacher.
Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father.
But go to my brothers and tell them,
‘I am going to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.’”
Mary went and announced to the disciples,
“I have seen the Lord,”
and then reported what he had told her.

The Gospel of the Lord.

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According to John’s Gospel, this is Mary Magdalene’s second trip to the empty tomb. 

First, she went under the cover of darkness. She saw the stone removed, then ran and told Peter and John, “They have taken the Lord, and we don’t know where they put him.”

Then she returns with John and Peter a second time. Ironically, after John and Peter see the empty tomb, they “return home.” 

Sometime later, Peter goes fishing.

But Mary stays and weeps. 

This is where we find her in today’s Gospel, stuck in her grief.

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When Jesus appears to her and asks, “Whom are you looking for?”, she cries out tearfully, “They have taken my Lord.” 

Mary is looking for a dead Jesus.

Although he’s standing right in front of her, Mary has yet to make the leap of faith from Good Friday to Easter Sunday.

What inspires the change within her is not “seeing” Jesus, but hearing his voice. Here the Lord reinforces his identity as the Good Shepherd, who seeks and saves what was lost.

“My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me,” he says.

We can imagine Mary lunging at her shepherd’s feet, as if she’s trying to keep Jesus firmly planted here on earth. So, the Lord rebukes her gently, saying, “Stop holding onto me. I am going to my Father and to your Father.”

Mary must accept that the world is not Christ’s “home.” Nor is it ultimately ours. We are destined for more, and are invited to embrace this truth, in particular, as we mourn the death of Pope Francis.

Just as Mary Magdalene once did, Francis has made his way to our Father’s house. He has competed well; he has run the race to the finish; he has kept the faith.

May he rest from his labors.

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And may Christ fill our hearts with Easter joy, for he is truly risen! Alleluia!

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Image credits: (1) JW.org (2) Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalene After the Resurrection, Alexander Ivanov (3) The Best is Yet to Come, BSLC

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Acts 2: 14, 22-23

On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up with the Eleven,
raised his voice, and proclaimed:
“You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem.
Let this be known to you, and listen to my words.

“You who are children of Israel, hear these words.
Jesus the Nazorean was a man commended to you by God
with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs,
which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.
This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God,
you killed, using lawless men to crucify him.
But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death,
because it was impossible for him to be held by it.
For David says of him:

I saw the Lord ever before me,
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
Therefore my heart has been glad and my tongue has exulted;
my flesh, too, will dwell in hope,
because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world,
nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.

My brothers, one can confidently say to you
about the patriarch David that he died and was buried,
and his tomb is in our midst to this day.
But since he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn an oath to him
that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne,
he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ,
that neither was he abandoned to the netherworld
nor did his flesh see corruption.
God raised this Jesus;
of this we are all witnesses.
Exalted at the right hand of God,
he poured forth the promise of the Holy Spirit
that he received from the Father, as you both see and hear.”

The Word of the Lord.

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One of the earliest proofs of the resurrection is the complete transformation of Peter’s behavior.

Remember what happened on Holy Thursday and Good Friday: Jesus was betrayed, arrested, abandoned, and crucified. Meanwhile, Peter vehemently denied knowing Jesus three times while warming his hands by a fire.

Only the Apostle John and a few women stayed with the Lord until his death. But even they had no idea he’d be raised three days later.

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In our first reading, the same cowardly Peter who denied knowing Jesus, now boldly risks his life by preaching to the same crowds who called for Christ’s death.

“This man you killed, using lawless men to crucify him,” Peter says. “But God raised this Jesus; of this we are all witnesses.”

There’s no other logical explanation for this dramatic change in Peter’s behavior – from cowardice to courage, fear to freedom – unless Peter is thoroughly convinced that Christ is alive again.

This is not some short-lived moment of inspiration, either. Peter will spend the next and final three decades of his life proclaiming the same truth that belief in this person, Jesus, leads to salvation and the resurrection. 

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Do I exude the same joy, hope, and faith as Peter? Has my belief in the resurrection thoroughly transformed my perspective on life?

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We will dive into the Acts of the Apostles during the Easter season to inspire ever greater faith among us, to see and believe in our hearts what Peter did – Jesus is alive again!

Alleluia!

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Image credits: (1) North Heights Church of Christ (2) Church POP (3) Saint Angela Merici Catholic Church

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Gospel: John 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.

The Gospel of the Lord.

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In August 2021, two-hundred children gathered with their families at their local church in Haiti. All of the children were dressed in white, preparing for their baptism.

Twenty minutes before the ceremony was set to begin, the ground beneath them started shaking. 

Suddenly the roof of that poorly constructed building – the house of God nonetheless – collapsed, crushing twenty-three people, including a two-year-old child in her mother’s arms.

Somehow the mother survived.

In a country filled with such violence and poverty, this ceremony was meant to be a rare moment of hope, which evaporated in a matter of seconds, as death came like a thief in the night.

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Hearing about this tragedy led to one of only two times I’ve ever yelled at God. It felt like another senseless Good Friday. 

For these victims and their families, the horror of Good Friday was not something that happened to a humble carpenter turned miracle worker from Nazareth two-thousand years ago. 

Trapped beneath the rubble, it happened to them. 

Much like the Blessed Mother who gazed upon her son as he was dying on the Cross, these Christians suffered unimaginable loss.

Yet their grief leads us to the very heart of the Easter message: Yes, Christ IS Risen from the dead!

But consider the circumstances.

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The resurrection is the most important event in the history of our world, yet there was not a single eyewitness with the exception of God himself. 

The Lord was raised from the dead under the cover of darkness, in the predawn hours of Easter morning, while his disciples were fast asleep, exhausted from their grief. 

Mary Magdalene was the first person to see the empty tomb, because she was willing to venture into the darkness – not only the dim of early dawn, but also the darkness of her grief, which brought her back to that eerie garden turned cemetery on Easter morning.

It’s there – in that place – where Easter happens; where death is defeated; where angels appear to Mary, transforming her inconsolable sorrow into uncontrollable joy.

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This must’ve been by God’s own design.

The same God who created the earth out of a formless waste, who made something out of nothing in the beginning of time, brought life out of death that first Easter morning. 

These two pillars of our faith – God’s creation of the world, and the resurrection of Christ from the dead – are mind-boggling mysteries that force us to question, to ponder, to risk the audacity of belief, hoping against hope. 

Today we recognize that the physical space between the hill where Christ was crucified and the tomb where his body once lay is a mere stone’s throw apart, but the spiritual journey from Good Friday to Easter Sunday requires a giant leap of faith.

For Mary Magdalene, it was almost instantaneous. For Peter, it took a bit longer. For some, perhaps some of those Haitians trapped beneath the rubble, a lifetime. 

Yet it’s a leap which every Christian is invited to make because Easter makes our faith real, relevant, and deeply personal.

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I’m sure we’ve all had some “Good Friday” experiences in our own lives – a share of grief, loss, doubt, or questions about God’s existence, especially in the face of unfair suffering.

But that’s where the Risen Lord seeks to appear to us – in the darkness, in the stillness, in the silence. You might say, in the predawn hours of Sunday morning.

And, when he appears, he doesn’t speak with a litany of answers to all of our questions. He whispers a single word in our heart of hearts. It’s the same word he first spoke to his disciples after his resurrection:

“Peace.”

In Hebrew, “shalom.”

Shalom means harmony, wholeness, stillness. It implies that something – or someone – has been broken then pieced back together. It’s the type of healing which only God can do.

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“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,” an ecstatic Mary Magdalene proclaims to us today. 

Yes, Christ is truly Risen! Alleluia!

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Image credits: (1) JW.org (2) Pulitzer Center (3) Vecteezy