He rose as he said: At 10, Col 3, and the empty tomb in Jn 20.

## I. The First Reading: Acts 10:34a.37-43

Peter takes the floor in Cornelius, the Roman centurion’s house, and delivers the first missionary speech to pagans. He summarizes what transpired: “You know that what happened in Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached” (Acts 10:37). God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power; he went about doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil (v.38). The Jews killed him by nailing him to a cross, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and made him visible, not to everyone, but to those whom God had predestined as witnesses: to us, who ate and drank with him after his resurrection from the dead (vv.40-41). Peter concludes: Jesus was appointed judge over the living and the dead, and all who believe in him receive forgiveness of sins through his name (vv.42-43). Easter is not philosophy; it is testimony. Peter does not argue; he narrates. The resurrection is a lived fact, eaten and drunk, not a theory.

## II. The Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4

“If you have been raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). Paul does not say that you will be raised in the future; he says that you have been raised. Baptism is already a participation in Christ’s resurrection. The immediate consequence is to seek what is above, not what is on earth. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (v.3). This hiding is not absence but the form of Christ’s presence in time between Ascension and Parousia. “When Christ, your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (v.4). The disciple’s Easter has two phases: the phase of hiding, where the new life is hidden beneath the appearance of daily life, and the phase of manifestation, which coincides with Christ’s glorious coming.

## III. The Gospel: John 20:1-9

The text narrates Mary Magdalene’s visit to the tomb at dawn, the removal of the stone, Peter and the beloved disciple’s rush to the scene, and the moment when the beloved disciple saw and believed. The three texts depict the same movement: from the tomb to life, from hiding to manifestation, from death to glory.

On the first day of the week, still in the early morning, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb and finds the stone removed. She runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple: «They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him» (Jn 20:2). Both run. The beloved disciple arrives first but stays at the door. Peter enters: he sees the strips on the ground and the sheet that had covered Jesus’ head, folded and placed aside. The beloved disciple enters. «He saw and believed» (v.8). The text adds honestly: «for they still did not understand the Scripture, according to which he was to rise from the dead» (v.9). Easter faith does not arise from prior deduction: it arises from contact with the empty sign and openness to what the sign points to. The folded sheet, the strips on the ground, the tomb that holds what is no longer there: these are signs that the beloved disciple read with the eyes of love before understanding them with reason.

IV. Mary and the Saturday of Faith

Jn 20 does not mention the Virgin Mary on Easter Sunday. But the contemplative tradition recognized that Mary is the central figure of Holy Saturday: the only one who maintained her faith when the Son was in the tomb and the disciples had fled or doubted. Col 3 says that the life of the baptized is hidden with Christ in God: Mary lived this radical hiding on Holy Saturday, with the life of the Son hidden under the stone, waiting for the manifestation she could only believe without yet seeing. Acts 10 affirms that the apostles ate and drank with the Risen One: tradition, since at least the 5th century, attributed Jesus’ first appearance to His Mother, before Mary Magdalene, before Peter, before the disciples of Emmaus, because her love was what had waited the longest. Easter Sunday is the fulfillment of what Mary kept silent on Holy Saturday. The stone that the beloved disciples read with surprise, Mary read with hope: she knew, with the faith no disciple yet attained, that the Son would return.