BUT THEY DID NOT BELIEVE THEM EITHER

At 4,13-21; Ps 117; Mk 16,9-15
7 APRIL
The Evangelist Mark highlights the non faith of the disciples when they are told that Jesus has risen and has manifested himself. Needless to try to build the history of the morning after Saturday putting together the individual elements of the four Gospels. No agreement will ever be possible. Every Evangelist is the announcer of a truth in its own right. Only the historical core of the “principal or essential characters to the story” remains intact: Risen Christ, Mary of Magdala, the other women, the disciples of Emmaus and the Apostles. In Mark everything is aimed at creating in the Apostles the faith in the Risen Christ. But always the Apostles refuse to believe. This is the truth of the Gospel of Mark. Then it is right that we ask ourselves: why does the second Evangelist concentrate everything on the will of not wanting to believe on the part of the Apostles of the Lord? Paul tells us the truth in the First Letter to Timothy. He too refused, stubbornly refused to not wanting to believe in the Risen Christ and stifled the light of Christ by killing his disciples, or dragging them into prisons. He did everything to extinguish Christ.

I am grateful to him who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry. I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief. Indeed, the grace of our Lord has been abundant, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life. To the king of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, honour and glory forever and ever. Amen (1Tm 1,12-17).

As in Paul his obstinacy becomes an essential element in his preaching – He was torn from non faith by the power of the light of the Risen Christ, blinded by it and planted by grace and mercy in Christ the truth of all the Scriptures – so the Apostles did not come to the faith because they were dragged by others or because there was a need in them to fill the void left by the Master. They believe in the resurrection because Christ himself, just as he did with Paul, worked with them. He came in person, revealed, manifested and has shown himself. They do not go throughout the world for a vague feeling of their heart, but because the Risen Jesus himself gave them this mandate: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature”. Nothing is from their will, nothing from their feeling. Instead everything is from Christ Jesus.

When he had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either.  (But) later, as the eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

Rome, the city in which Peter and Mark live the proclamation of the Gospel there is little room for a faith based on sentiment or exaltation and not even if it is founded on others’ experiences. Peter must attest to every heart that not even He believed, He too was afraid to witness to Christ and He also doubted the Word of the Master. This gives him total credibility. He does not present himself as a winner, but as a defeated always saved by the love of the Master. As Jesus saved him, He will save all of them, on condition that they believe in Him and let themselves be led from light to light by Him, in the same way that Peter let himself be led from light to light. If the missionary of Jesus proclaims the Gospel from the historical concreteness of his life, it is always easier to create faith in the hearts, otherwise he could also appear as a deceiver.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us credible missionaries.