First reading: Acts 10:34a,37–43

Peter proceeded to speak and said: “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Second reading: Col. 3:1–4

Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.

Gospel: Jn. 20:1–9

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

In other words 

Fr. Pio Estepa, SVD (Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay City)

“On the first day of the week…”

The opening reference to that blessed day is clearly symbolic. On the last day (Sabbath) of Creation, God rested. On the first day (Sunday) of a wholly new week, Abba the Father creates the firstborn of a new humanity gifted with immortal glory. Thus, he who was victim of all sin rose as victor over all evil.

The resurrection account of John next narrates how three of his most intimate disciples thought, felt, and acted on that blessed day.

Mary of Mandala… “seeing the stone removed from the tomb, ran to Simon Peter and the beloved disciple…”

How much her loving heart wished that Jesus were alive! But her candid mind bade her to resign to his violent death—to which she was a helpless weeping witness. Her own bare hands helped his grieving mother in hurriedly cleansing his corpse for burial. So, the only sense she could make of the empty tomb was: the corpse was stolen, but who did it and why?

Peter… “did not yet understand the Scripture that [the Messiah] had to rise from the dead.”

After Jesus’ arrest, the apostles fled for their lives. None of them was present with the brave mourning women during his passion and burial—except the “beloved disciple.” So Peter, not knowing where the tomb was, could only follow the lead of the running other on that Easter dawn. Yet, out of respect for the primacy of Peter, that other let him enter the tomb first. What Peter saw next from within was as senseless as what Mary saw from without: the corpse could have only been stolen indeed, but who did it and why?

The hard-nosed reactions of Mary and Peter attest only to this: that the rumor about a dead man coming back to life could not have had its source in the gullible folly or the mendacious malice of the first disciples of Jesus. For, at first, they were as cynical of such news as non-believers of their time.

Without the light of sacred Scriptures, events in life remain opaque in meaning and marvel.

The beloved disciple… “saw and believed.”

Though some exegetes of today propose other erudite guesses of who else the “beloved disciple” may be, Catholic tradition identifies him more plausibly as John the Apostle. He did not take what he saw—an empty tomb and unwrapped linen cloths left by an absent corpse—as empirical proofs that the Christ was risen. These just made him recall how Jesus was earlier living in accord with the mission of the Suffering Servant as foretold by prophetic Scripture.

In love for Jesus, John lived not by knowledge of sight—but by insight of faith. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).