The Resurrection and the Glorification

On the third day, Christ rises from the dead. What he had announced is fulfilled: death could not hold him, and his humanity enters living into the glory of God. For forty days, he shows himself to his own, eats with them, lets himself be touched, opens their minds to the Scriptures, and sends them to the whole world. Then he is lifted up to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. His earthly life ends; his presence remains, in the Spirit he gives and in the sacraments of his Church, until the day he returns in glory.

The Empty Tomb

On the morning of the first day of the week, women come to the tomb with spices to finish embalming the body, buried in haste before the Sabbath. They find the stone rolled away and the tomb open. Mary Magdalene, believing the body has been taken, runs at once to warn Peter and John; the other women remain and hear an angel announce to them: “He is not here, for he is risen, as he said.” Matthew 28:6. Peter and John run to the tomb; John arrives first and stops, letting Peter enter before him. They see the linen cloths lying on the ground and the cloth that had covered the head rolled up apart. A stolen body would not have been stripped of its wrappings nor left in order: the collapsed cloths, emptied of what they had enwrapped, say plainly that no one carried him off. John sees, and he believes.

The Appearance to Mary Magdalene

Peter and John return home; Mary Magdalene, however, remains near the tomb and weeps outside. It is to her that the risen Lord shows himself first (Mark 16:9). She catches sight of Jesus without recognizing him and takes him for the gardener. He calls her by her name: “Mary!”, and at once she turns: “Rabbouni!”, an Aramaic word meaning “Master.” She wishes to hold him back, but he says to her: “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go tell my brothers: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” John 20:17. The Greek verb rendered “to touch” also means “to attach oneself, to hold back,” haptomai (ἅπτομαι). If Christ first ascends to the Father, it is to pour out afterward upon his own the Holy Spirit who rests on him; he does not leave them orphans (John 14:18), but gives them through this Spirit a presence more inward than that of his earthly days. Mary must therefore not hold back the former presence, which gives way to a new one. He says “my Father and your Father,” not “our Father”: he is Son of God by nature, and it is in him that his own become so by grace.

The Appearance to the Holy Women

As they hasten toward the disciples, torn between fear and great joy, Jesus himself comes to meet them and greets them. They draw near, take hold of his feet, and bow down before him (Matthew 28:9). He calms their fear and sends them to tell his brothers to go to Galilee, where they will see him.

The Disciples of Emmaus

That same day, two disciples make their way to the village of Emmaus, crushed by the death of the one in whom they had hoped. Jesus joins them, but their eyes are held from recognizing him (Luke 24:16). It is God who thus veils their sight, in proportion to their unbelief: they had refused to believe that he would rise on the third day, and neither the empty tomb nor the message of the angels had shaken them. He reproaches their slowness to believe the prophets and shows them, from Moses and all the prophets, that the Messiah had to suffer in order to enter his glory: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things to enter his glory?” Luke 24:26. Reaching the village, they beg him to stay. At table, he takes up the gesture of the Last Supper: he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. At that instant their eyes open, they recognize him, and he vanishes from their sight: he lets himself be recognized in the breaking of the bread, then withdraws, for it is there that he will henceforth give himself to be received. They recall then how their hearts burned while he opened the Scriptures to them. The word of God accomplishes what it says: in the beginning, it drew all things from nothing, “God said: let there be light, and there was light.” Genesis 1:3. God being love, this same word carries his love into the heart of man and sets it ablaze; this fire manifested the divine nature of the one who, now glorified, was speaking to them.

The Appearance to the Apostles

On the evening of that first day, the disciples are gathered, the doors locked for fear. Jesus comes and stands in their midst: “Peace be with you.” John 20:19. Seized with fright, they think they see a spirit; he shows them his hands and his side, and takes food before them: proof that he is risen in his very body. Then he sends them as the Father sent him, breathes on them, and gives them the Spirit: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; those whose sins you retain, they are retained.” John 20:22-23. He thus entrusts to his own the power to forgive sins in his name: the institution of the sacrament by which the Church, until the end, raises up sinners.

Doubting Thomas

Thomas, one of the Twelve, was absent that evening. To the others who tell him they have seen the Lord, he refuses to believe without putting his finger in the mark of the nails and his hand into his side. Eight days later, the disciples are gathered again, Thomas with them; the doors closed, Jesus comes, offers his wounds to be touched, and invites him to be no longer unbelieving but believing. Thomas falls into the highest confession: “My Lord and my God!” John 20:28. The risen one keeps in his glorious body the marks of his passion, signs of the love that delivered him. Beyond the gathered disciples, Jesus looks toward all who will believe on their word: “Blessed are those who have believed without having seen.” John 20:29.

The Catch at the Lake

Back in Galilee, Peter and a few others return to fishing and spend the night catching nothing. At morning, a man stands on the shore and tells them to cast the net to the right of the boat; they fill it with a multitude of fish without the net tearing. John then recognizes the Lord: “It is the Lord!” John 21:7, and Peter throws himself into the water to reach him. On the shore, Jesus has prepared a charcoal fire with bread and fish, and shares the meal with them. The scene recalls their first call, when, on this same lake, an overflowing catch had made them fishers of men; the laden net that does not tear announces the multitude of peoples that the Church will gather without breaking her unity.

The Primacy of Peter

The meal finished, Jesus turns to Peter. Three times he asks him: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”, and three times, at his answer, he entrusts a charge: “Feed my lambs”; “Be the shepherd of my sheep”; “Feed my sheep.” John 21:15-17. If he questions him three times, it is in view of the threefold denial of the passion: as many times as Peter had said he did not know him, so many times he now has him profess his love. Christ entrusts to Peter the whole of his flock, lambs and sheep, and establishes him shepherd of the entire Church. Then Jesus foretells that he will follow him unto death, one day stretching out his hands to be led where he would not wish, and he calls him: “Follow me.” John 21:19.

The Great Commission

On the mountain of Galilee he had appointed for them, the eleven find him again, amid a great assembly of disciples: Paul reports that the risen one “was seen by more than five hundred brothers at once” 1 Corinthians 15:6. Seeing him, they bow down; but some doubt (Matthew 28:17). Jesus comes forward and declares that all power has been given to him in heaven and on earth. This is the foundation of the sending: because he has received all authority, he can entrust a mission without borders. “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19. During his ministry, he had addressed himself first to Israel; the risen one now opens salvation to all peoples. He says “in the name,” and not “in the names”: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit share one same name, being one single God. His ascent to the Father inaugurates a new presence: through the Spirit and the sacraments, Christ will accompany his Church in the mission he entrusts to her: “I am with you all days, until the end of the world.” Matthew 28:20.

The Ascension of the Lord

Forty days after Easter, Jesus leads his disciples near Bethany. He lifts his hands and blesses them, and while he blesses them, he parts from them and rises toward heaven, where a cloud hides him from their sight. He is seated at the right hand of the Father: his humanity, the one born of Mary and crucified, enters into the glory of God. While the Apostles gaze at the sky, two men in white garments say to them: “This Jesus, who has been taken up into heaven, will return in the same way you have seen him go up.” Acts 1:11. They return to Jerusalem filled with joy, awaiting the promised Spirit. The earthly life of Christ thus finds its fulfillment in the return to the Father, from whom he pours out his Spirit upon the Church and from whom he will return, on the last day, in glory.