Easter Sunday 2024
Preaching by Sister Bibiana "Bless" Colasito, OP

Sunday, March 31, 2024
John 20:1-18

 

Good morning, everyone!

Today’s Gospel shows the reversal of an androcentric world thinking of male dominance even in the interpretation of grace. This world thinking of male dominance was not patronized by Jesus in today’s gospel. In fact, the narrative pictured Mary in the beginning and at the end of the Gospel. As related earlier in the Gospel, Mary “bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels….” In the commentary, Barbara Reid says that Mary’s action “symbolizes one who dares to enter the Holy of Holies, an act reserved for high priests.” It will not escape our minds that Jesus, on that Resurrection morning, chose to manifest himself to a woman of no-good standing based on the thinking of her very own community. This preference of Jesus, of revealing himself to Mary Magdalene early on that Easter Sunday, was an act of absolute respect for women, no matter their social condition.

Pope Francis in the synthesis of the Synod on Synodality urges people throughout the world to stop “referring to women as the problem,” hence stop the androcentric notion that men have the profound truth and women come secondary, or [not] at all.

The recently concluded UN Conference on the Status of Women, attended in person by over 6,000 women and men, religious and lay, and [attended] virtually by over 15,000 women all over the world, echo the hard reality of women and girls who have been victims of domestic violence in all its forms.

Like Jesus, who showed absolute importance to women, like Pope Francis, who is urging humanity that women are gifts to this universe and not a “problem,” the Conference on the Status of Women is calling people of goodwill to heed the suffering of women. This global issue is more horrific when the abuse happens inside the confines of their own homes.

What lesson can we draw from this example of Jesus’s regard of women? The UN Conference on the Status of Women calls for the development of women in ways where they are uplifted financially, socially, culturally, and spiritually, so they are able to function as individuals with so many gifts to give to the world. Jesus uplifted Mary Magdalene’s socio/cultural image by appearing first to her and [having her] be the messenger to the disciples that he “will go ahead of them to Galilee” and meet them there. These women in that conference and all the unfortunate women whose issues they have taken to the UN dared to enter the “Holy of Holies” in that premises where voices of nations [are laid out] to be heard. In the Gospel today, Jesus lifted Mary Magdalene. He heard her heart beating and [her] longing for compassion from her community. While nobody braved to take her as one of their own, Jesus gave compassion to her. That changed Mary Magdalene for the better.

Mary did not witness how the resurrection happened, but when “she saw the stone had been removed from the tomb” she was the first to tell the disciples that Jesus’s body is nowhere to be found. In the Gospel of Mark, the angel inside the tomb told Mary Magdalene and the other women with her to “tell his disciples that Jesus will see them in Galilee.” In today’s Gospel, it was Jesus himself who told her to tell his disciples that he “will go ahead of them to Galilee” and meet them there. The appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene after he rose from the dead indicates how women are indispensable proclaimers of the Good News.

In the UN Conference on the Status of Women this year, the message was clear, the world needs to seriously consider the cause of women with urgency. This urgency was proclaimed by those women who either in-person or virtually attended the conference. Some of these women were victims and survivors of the abuse from inside and outside their homes. This urgency, if taken most importantly, will help alleviate the sufferings of women from the confines of the home and from the treacherous manipulations of those who are engaged in human trafficking. On many occasions, women are trafficked by their own families, their own intimate partners, and by people whose heart and mind are focused on profit.

The Gospel today is the Good News. It is the Good News of Jesus’s love for everyone, including women. The resurrection account testifies to that love, that unconditional love where everyone claims their special place in the heart of God, and the promise of Jesus meeting us in our own Galilees, whoever we are. Allowing us to dare to enter the “Holy of Holies” reserved for everybody, can be a radical call to live our life today.

Happy Easter!