Daily Reading
First Reading
1 John 1:1-4
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Psalm
Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 11-12
The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
and all the peoples behold his glory.
Light dawns for the righteous,
and joy for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name!
Gospel Reading
John 20:1a and 2-8
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;
Reflection
Friends, on this feast of St. John, our Gospel tells of his coming to faith in the resurrection when he saw the empty tomb.
From this grave of Jesus, we learn that everything we took to be the case is not the case—that what always moved this way, now moves that way.
God has shown us his power over death in the most unambiguous way; our lives should not be dominated by the fear of death, and we see the proof of this in the most vivid way imaginable.
Some people think that they will make the resurrection more intelligible or more acceptable to modern people if they allegorize it away, turning it into a vague symbol of the perdurance of Jesus’s cause. But then his grave would be, like the grave of any ordinary hero, sad, wistful, reassuring.
Notice, please, that no cult of Jesus’s tomb ever developed in Christianity; we don’t look back with easy wistfulness. Rather, we allow ourselves to be surprised, turned upside down by it.