“Stay with us, Lord”: Mary, Teacher of Paschal Hope.

“Stay with us, Lord, for evening is drawing on and the day is now far spent”. (Lk 24:29). With these words, the two disciples of Emmaus ask the stranger they met on the road to remain with them. It is Easter Monday. They are walking away from Jerusalem, the city of the Resurrection that they are not yet able to recognize, when they meet the Risen One. They did not recognize Him while they walked. They recognize Him “in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35). And right afterward He vanishes. They return at once to Jerusalem. This is the itinerary that Mary the teacher of Paschal hope has already traveled.

Easter Monday is not the “day after” the feast: it is the first day of ordinary Paschal life. The Risen One does not dwell only in the great liturgical moments, the Vigil, the Sunday, but also on the roads of those who walk disoriented, with “a heavy heart” (Lk 24:17), unable to recognize what is there before them. And the Cenacle to which the disciples of Emmaus return, where they find the Eleven and the others gathered together, is the place where Mary is: “in persevering prayer, with Mary, the mother of Jesus” (Acts 1:14). It is in this Cenacle that Mary the teacher awaits those who return from the road.

I. First Reading: Acts 2:14, 22-33, Mary the Teacher of Paschal Memory

The liturgy of Easter Monday proposes as its first reading Peter’s first discourse on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14, 22-33). Peter proclaims: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works, wonders, and signs… you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised Him up, having loosed the pangs of death” (Acts 2:22-24). This kerygma that Peter proclaims at Pentecost has a prehistory: the days between the Ascension and Pentecost, spent in the Cenacle “in persevering prayer, with Mary”.

Theological tradition, drawing on the Lucan exegesis of Acts 1:12-14, has perceived that these days in the Cenacle were not merely days of passive waiting. This Mary the teacher, who had kept in her heart thirty-three years of memories of her Son, communicated to the apostles what they did not yet know: “Episodes, sayings, and details of the life of Jesus unknown until then reached them through the school of Mary. The figure and the teaching of the Master, presented by the Mother, became more penetrating and more luminous in their minds”. Peter’s kerygma is unthinkable without the Paschal catechesis of Mary the teacher.

II. Gospel: Lk 24:13-35 and the Road That Leads Down from Jerusalem

The Gospel of Emmaus is one of the richest texts in the New Testament. Two disciples, one named Cleopas, the other unnamed, are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, six kilometers away. “They were talking about all that had happened” (Lk 24:14). When the stranger asks them what they are discussing, the answer is brutally honest: “Our hope was that it was He who would set Israel free. But with all this, three days have already passed since these things happened” (Lk 24:21). Hope in the form of disappointment.

The Risen One responds with Scripture: “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them in all the Scriptures what referred to Him” (Lk 24:27). It is a Paschal catechesis. The Risen One interprets Scripture in the light of what has happened, and what has happened is interpreted in the light of Scripture. This hermeneutical circle is the same one that Mary had lived her whole life: she “kept all these things in her heart”, rereading them in the light of Isaiah, the Psalms, and the Prophets. In teaching the disciples of Emmaus, the Risen One does what Mary had done in the Cenacle.

III. “In the Breaking of the Bread”: The Eucharist as Paschal Recognition

The disciples recognize the Risen One “in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35). This gesture, which points directly to the Last Supper and, therefore, to the Eucharist, is the key to recognizing the presence of the Risen One. The liturgy of Easter Monday, by including this Gospel, proclaims that the Eucharist is the privileged place of encounter with the risen Lord. Not a vision, not a miracle, not an extraordinary experience: the broken bread.

Mary the teacher is bound to this mystery in a way that tradition rarely makes explicit. She is the first to have “broken” the bread of existence to nourish the Son: the Incarnation has a Eucharistic logic from the Annunciation onward. And in the Cenacle, by remaining “in persevering prayer” with the community that gathers for “the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42), she is the presence that guarantees the continuity between the bread of Bethlehem, the bread of the Last Supper, and the bread of the Risen One at Emmaus.

IV. The Return to Jerusalem: Mary the Teacher in the Cenacle and the Mission

“They got up at once and returned to Jerusalem” (Lk 24:33). This return of the disciples of Emmaus is the model of every Paschal conversion: abandoning the direction of flight, returning to the community, to the Cenacle, to the place where Mary and the apostles persevere in prayer. Luke, with his customary geographical and theological precision, links the recognition of the Risen One at Emmaus to the return to Jerusalem: there is no authentic Paschal experience that does not lead into the community.

Mary the teacher in the Cenacle, “virgin filled with the Holy Spirit, model of the praying Church, model of harmony, communion, and peace, docile to the voice of the Spirit, vigilant in awaiting the return of the Lord”, is the center of this return. The disciples coming back from Emmaus reach the community, and the community is gathered with Mary. She is the face of the Church that waits, that prays, that keeps the memory of the Risen One in order to share it with those who still arrive disoriented from the road. The “mane nobiscum, Domine” of the disciples of Emmaus becomes, in the Cenacle, the “erant perseverantes in oratione” (Acts 1:14): the plea that He stay becomes the practice of remaining.

On this Easter Monday of 2026, we invite you to recognize the Risen One where He promised to be: in the “breaking of the bread”, in Scripture interpreted, in the community gathered with Mary the teacher in prayer. And, like the disciples of Emmaus, to return to Jerusalem, to the Cenacle, to the Church, to the mother who awaits us, to share what the heart recognized when evening was already drawing on: “It is true! The Lord has risen!” (Lk 24:34). Read also: the burning heart: Mary and Emmaus, the Paschal joy of Mary Magdalene, and Mary’s Paschal peace. Cf. Redemptoris Mater §§ 21-24.

Deepen your knowledge of Mariology: This article is part of our vast collection of Marian reflection. If you wish to study Mariology with academic rigor, discover our Postgraduate Program in Mariology. To learn more about Marian apparitions and Marian Theology, explore the resources of the Locus Mariologicus Institute.

Deepen your knowledge of Mariology: This article is part of our vast collection of Marian reflection. If you wish to study Mariology with academic rigor, discover our Postgraduate Program in Mariology. To learn more about Marian apparitions and Marian Theology, explore the resources of the Locus Mariologicus Institute.