Are You John, Peter, Mary or Paul?

User's Guide to Easter Sunday

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Sunday, April 5, is Easter Sunday (Year B). Then what follows is the eight “octave” days of Easter, each called in the liturgy “This Easter Day.”

 

Mass Readings

Acts 10:34, 37-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23; Colossians 3:1-4, or 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; John 20:1-9

 

Our Take

Who will you be this Easter? Today’s Gospel and readings give four options.

 

Mary Magdalene — the early responder

“Mary came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark,” says the Gospel. She was at the tomb at dawn, and ready to honor the Lord, when she found it empty. So what did she do? “She ran and went to Simon Peter,” says the Gospel.

She was quick to go to Jesus that morning and just as quick to go to the Church, too.

If we are Mary Magdalenes, we are committed to prayer and committed to the Church. Jesus is our first stop each day, and our relationship with him inspires us to serve him in his Church.

 

John the Evangelist — the Marian disciple

Along with Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary, we saw John at the foot of the cross. It was there that Jesus put him in Mary’s charge. He has learned well. He bolts to the Lord’s side when Mary Magdalene tells him about the empty tomb.

Like Magdalene, he is also loyal to the Church — he outruns Peter, but waits for the keeper of the keys of the kingdom to enter first.

John is “the disciple whom Jesus loved” — and he is also the disciple who is closest to the Virgin Mary.  It is a secret we all can share: because he loves us, too — and we also can nurture a close relationship with Mary, our mother.

 

Simon Peter — the repentant.

Often, Mary Magdalene is described as the repentant disciple — though her history is less clear than Peter’s. We know Peter had reason to repent. He has denied the Lord and avoided accusations that he is related to them.

But when it comes down to a response to Christ, Peter doesn’t let his shame or guilt get the better of him. He rushes right away to Jesus.

This is the difference between Judas and Peter: Judas pridefully refused to seek the Lord’s forgiveness. Peter was ready to face him right away. This is why Peter became the great saint described in the first reading. If we are Peters, we will rush to Jesus regardless of how we have let him down, eager to know him again.

 

Paul — the latecomer.

Last is Paul. He is the one we might identify with most. He wasn’t at the empty tomb at all — he encountered Christ in his life later, away from the scene of the Resurrection.

Paul came late to Christ, but in doing so, he shows us how to find the intimacy of a close relationship with Jesus — so close that Christ lives in us.

“You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,” he says. “When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.”

Whichever Easter saint best fits us, there is room by Christ’s side for each of us. Whether we never leave him or long to patch things up with him or come early or late, his awaits us in Easter, alive in his Church.

 

 

Tom and April Hoopes write from Atchison, Kansas,

 

where Tom is writer in residence at Benedictine College.