30 March 2027 · Latin Rite
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“Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).” John 20:16
Peter's first Easter sermon reaches its climax: “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The listeners are “cut to the heart” and ask the question every converted heart asks: “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter's answer is the shape of Christian beginnings to this day: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Repentance, Baptism, forgiveness, the Spirit. And the promise is wide: “for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” That day about three thousand were added. Peter is not accusing a nation; he is speaking to the people in front of him, as the Church speaks to every one of us, for all of us by our sins had a part in the Lord's death (Catechism 598). The words “this Jesus whom you crucified” are addressed to me. And the same words carry mercy: the One we crucified is the One who forgives.
This Octave the Church remembers the many who were baptized at Easter all over the world. The Psalm is their song and ours: “Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, to deliver their soul from death.” “The earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.” The newly baptized have been cut to the heart, have turned to Christ, and now begin their life in the Spirit. In the early Church they received special instructions during this week, called mystagogy, explaining the sacraments they had just received. Every Christian can use this week to rediscover his own Baptism: the water, the oil, the white garment, the candle, the name.
In the Gospel Mary Magdalene stands weeping outside the tomb. She bends down and sees two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet, like the cherubim over the ark of the covenant. “Woman, why are you weeping?” “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” She turns and sees Jesus but does not recognize him; she thinks he is the gardener. In a way he is: the new Adam in the garden of the new creation. He asks: “Whom are you looking for?” Then he says one word: “Mary!” And she knows him. The Good Shepherd calls his own sheep by name, and they know his voice. She cries: “Rabbouni!” and clings to him. Jesus says: “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers.” Her love must now become mission; he will be present to her in a new way, no longer to be held as before, but to be shared. And so she goes: “I have seen the Lord.” The Church calls her “apostle to the apostles.” Like her, we too are called by name in Baptism, and we too are sent.
Theme: “Mary!” “Rabbouni!”
Cut to the heart and baptized, called by name, and sent to announce: I have seen the Lord.
“Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,” Psalm 33:18
“Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
Apply: Make a good confession during the Easter season if you have not done so, and renew your baptismal promises in prayer.
“But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1
“Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).” John 20:16
Apply: Pray today using your baptismal name: “Lord, here I am, you have called me.”
“when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go” Song of Songs 3:4
“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.” John 20:18
Apply: Share with one person this week how you have met the risen Lord.
The word of the Resurrection cuts to the heart and leads to Baptism and the Spirit.
The risen Lord calls each of us by name and sends us to announce him.
Take-home resolution: Thank God for your Baptism today, and tell someone: I have seen the Lord.
Dear friends, on the day of Pentecost the crowd heard Peter's preaching and were cut to the heart. They asked: brothers, what should we do? Peter said: repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:37–38). That day about three thousand were baptized.
Peter's words, this Jesus whom you crucified, are spoken to each of us. Our sins too nailed him to the cross. But the One we crucified is the One who forgives. That is why the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
In the Gospel Mary Magdalene is weeping at the tomb. Angels speak to her; Jesus himself stands before her; but she does not recognize him. She thinks he is the gardener. Sometimes we too are so full of our sorrow that we do not see the Lord standing beside us.
Then Jesus says one word: Mary! (John 20:16). Only one person says our name like that. She turns and cries: Rabbouni! At our Baptism Jesus called us by name too. He still does, in prayer, in his word, in the sacraments.
But Jesus says: do not hold on to me… go to my brothers. Mary must not keep him for herself. She goes and says: I have seen the Lord (John 20:18). She becomes the apostle to the apostles.
Today, let the Lord call you by name. Let his word cut you to the heart and heal you. And then go, like Mary, and tell someone: I have seen the Lord. Alleluia. Amen.
Children, Mary was crying because she thought Jesus was gone. But Jesus said her name, and she knew him and became very happy!
Jesus knows your name too. Close your eyes and hear him say it with love. Then say: Jesus, I love you!
O God, who have bestowed on us paschal remedies, endow your people with heavenly gifts, so that, possessed of perfect freedom, they may rejoice in heaven over what gladdens them now on earth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen. Let us also pray: Risen Lord, you called Mary by name and turned her tears into joy. Call us by name today. Cut us to the heart and draw us to repentance, renew in us the grace of our Baptism, and send us to our brothers and sisters to say: I have seen the Lord. Alleluia. Amen.
Yesterday's sermon reaches its end, and the crowd asks the right question: “What should we do?” Peter answers with repentance and baptism, and three thousand are baptized. In the Gospel one woman, in tears at a tomb, hears her name. These are two ways of meeting the risen Lord: in a crowd cut to the heart, and alone in a garden. Psalm 33 sings that the earth is full of God's steadfast love. The key words today are turn, name and send.
Setting.
This is the conclusion of Peter's sermon at Pentecost. He has argued from Scripture that Jesus is the Messiah raised by God. Now he draws the conclusion, and the crowd responds. Acts is showing the beginning of the Church: the first converts are Jews and those who have joined them, from many lands, and God's promise is held out first to them.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”” (2:37)
They do not answer with anger. It is a good question to ask of every homily.
“Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (2:38)
There are two steps and two gifts: turning and baptism, then forgiveness and the Spirit. “Every one of you” means that baptism is personal, and no one is too far gone for it.
“For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”” (2:39)
The words “far away” recall Isaiah 57:19, and the last words echo Joel 2:32. Peter's horizon is already wider than his listeners know, as Cornelius will show (Acts 10).
“So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.” (2:41)
“Added” implies a passive: it is the Lord who adds (2:47). The Church grows by God's action, and the numbers are the fruit of one frightened fisherman's courage.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that from the very day of Pentecost the Church has celebrated and administered holy baptism, and it cites Peter's words to the crowd (CCC 1226). The two main effects of baptism are purification from sins and new birth in the Holy Spirit (CCC 1262). The Church is not a club that one joins but a people whom the Lord gathers, and the Spirit first came on her for that mission.
Setting.
The disciples have gone home (20:10), and Mary stays. The scene takes place in a garden, for John alone has told us that the tomb was in a garden (19:41). Jesus' question “Whom are you looking for?” repeats his first words in this Gospel (“What are you looking for?” 1:38). The good shepherd calls his own sheep by name (10:3), and now he does it.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb;” (20:11)
She has nothing left to do, and she stays. St Gregory the Great says in his homily on this Gospel that holy desires grow by delay, and that she who stayed to seek was the one who found (in substance).
“Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).” (20:16)
A single word opens her eyes, and it is her own name. She has already turned toward him once (v. 14). Now she turns in her heart.
“Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” (20:17)
Jesus will not stay as he was before. His presence from now on is of another kind: in the Spirit, in the word, in the sacraments.
“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.” (20:18)
She is the first to say this sentence, which will be the apostles' own (20:25). Hence the old title “apostle of the apostles”.
How the Church reads it.
St Thomas Aquinas, among others, calls Mary Magdalene the apostle to the apostles. In 2016, at the wish of Pope Francis, her memorial of 22 July was raised to a feast with that title in mind. The Catechism sees in “my Father and your Father” the new relationship of adoption that the Resurrection opens up: we become Christ's brothers and sisters by grace, though he is Son by nature in a way that we are not (CCC 654). In the Sequence, the Church asks her: “Tell us, Mary, what did you see on the way?”
Was Mary Magdalene the sinful woman of Luke 7?
The Gospels do not say so. Luke 8:2 says only that seven demons had gone out of her. In the West, from the time of St Gregory the Great, she was often identified with the sinful woman and with Mary of Bethany, and this shaped much of Western art and preaching. The Roman calendar since 1969 no longer makes that identification, and many scholars today treat them as different women. What the Gospel does say is greater: she stayed, she was called by name, and she was sent.
Why did Jesus send a woman first, when courts in the ancient world generally gave women's testimony less weight?
The Gospels record it without embarrassment because it happened. Inventors of such a story would hardly have made women the first witnesses, as many scholars point out. The Catechism notes that the women were the first messengers, even to the apostles (CCC 641).
Does “Lord and Messiah” mean that Jesus only became divine at the Resurrection?
No. Peter is proclaiming what God has publicly shown by raising him. The Church confesses that the Son is one in being with the Father from all eternity, and that the Resurrection reveals and glorifies him also in his humanity (CCC 445, 653).
This week's Gospels are heard together with the Church's newly baptized. In the Latin tradition they are the white-robed company of the Octave. If your parish has had new baptisms, greet them and pray for them. In families, Tuesday is a good day to recall your own baptism date, to light the candle if you still have it, and to thank God by name.