Daily Gospel Reflection: Saturday in the Octave of Easter
Saturday in the Octave of Easter
April 6, 2024
Gospel: Mk 16:9-15
When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week,
he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,
out of whom he had driven seven demons.
She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.
When they heard that he was alive
and had been seen by her, they did not believe.
After this he appeared in another form
to two of them walking along on their way to the country.
They returned and told the others;
but they did not believe them either.
But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them
and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart
because they had not believed those
who saw him after he had been raised.
He said to them, “Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commissions his disciples to “go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
The Church doesn’t have a mission; the Church is a mission. A passionate Catholicism brings people to Christ, like the four people who lowered the paralytic through the roof to get him to Jesus. An evangelizing Catholicism shouts from the rooftops, grabs people by the lapels, and speaks with urgency and energy about Jesus.
Obviously, this has to be done with great respect and love; but very often, obstacles that come from our “get-along” culture, and perhaps from an exaggerated ecumenism, keep it from getting done at all. We have not been successful in our Christianity unless and until we have brought others to the Lord.
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