Daily Gospel Reflection: Tuesday in the Octave of Easter
Bishop Robert Barron
Tuesday in the Octave of Easter
April 9, 2024
Gospel: Jn 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.
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, after speaking of being born of the Spirit, Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Genesis tells us that, at the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters, drawing order from chaos. Creation is nothing but the overflow from the intensity of Trinitarian love. Thus, all things—to the very root of their existence—flow from and are marked by the Spiritus Sanctus (Holy Spirit). He is their ground, their secret origin, their principle.
And more to the point, the Holy Spirit is the end of all things. God has created a dynamic universe, moving restlessly and relentlessly toward a goal, and this goal has been disclosed to us in Christ: the sharing in the love between the Father, who has given his only Son to the world, and the Son, who has offered himself back to the Father.
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