20th May

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen! Luke 24, 5 & 6

We cannot deny the affection of these women of Galilee who went to the tomb of Jesus, nor the courage of Joseph and Nicodemus to claim his body. There was more than aromatics and perfumes to embalm it. There was love, devotion and tears. Mary Magdalene groans at the tomb; Peter and John compete with zeal to run there; the two disciples, on the path of Emmaus, discuss about Jesus together and are sad, but soon their hearts burn while their mysterious fellow traveller speaks to them about himself. All that was certainly a demonstration of affection, but however the disciples could not believe it.

The Lord is not satisfied with this state of spirit. The disciples run to the tomb in haste, but this is not enough. We have to see him who came to us in our state of death by faith. We don't have to look for him in his tomb. We are dead and not him. He is alive and not us. The Son of God entered this scene of ruin, like the Saviour of lost beings and who invigorates dead. This is what we must know. He did not leave his disciples until he had made his light of the great mystery of resurrection shine in their hearts and their consciousness. "And they, having paid homage to him, turned around from there and went back to Jerusalem with a great joy" (Luke 24, 52).