Overcoming the difficulty of believing
Homily of April 10, 2021
In the last lines of the Gospel according to Saint Mark, we see this emphasis on the difficulty of believing. Particularly this paragraph which exegetes think is an addition as the Gospel of Saint Mark ended quickly after the resurrection. This addition, undoubtedly late, includes this expression of the difficulty of believing on the part of those, as the Gospel says, “who had lived with Christ” and who grieved and wept. When we are immersed in pain, it is difficult to open up, to open our eyes to something else. They refuse to believe Mary Magdalene, the first one sent to them, even though she had seen Jesus alive. They also refused to believe these two of them who were on their way to the countryside. We recognize our friends from the road to Emmaus there. Perhaps more radically, the eleven at the table at the end of that day refused to believe.
The tone is quite different from that in the Gospel of Saint John that we commented on yesterday where there is this very great serenity, as in Saint Luke moreover, of a Jesus who coming to meet his disciples, does not make them of reproaches but invites them to return to the peace of a victory won over evil and death. There, the tone is different. If Jesus does not reproach them for the past, victory over sin has been achieved; on the other hand, he makes a remark about the present. He is surprised and reproaches their lack of faith and the hardness of their hearts. Without doubt, these eleven needed to experience what the disciples of Emmaus had experienced. It was not overnight, nor suddenly, that their hearts were transformed. It took this whole journey, it took the rereading of Scripture with the Lord for their hearts to become all burning. Their hearts had to be touched by the resurrected Christ. This is also true of Saint Thomas, who had plenty of reason to regret not having been there, not having noticed that the Lord Jesus had indeed appeared in flesh and blood. These eleven undoubtedly needed their hearts to be transformed to escape from the hardness of the heart that sometimes tears, pain, suffering only make worse. This text which completes the Gospel of Saint Mark also questions us about this work that Easter Week invites us to experience. Of this heart in us which also needs to be touched to find faith, serenity and soften a little from its hardness.
We could entrust this prayer to our cardiologist God, presenting ourselves before him with this disease called sclerocardia. A heart that is sclerotic, that is hardened and that closes. Let us ask the Lord that, through his resurrection, he comes to touch and heal our sick hearts. We are too often certain of it, we too often experience it. Let us also pray for the heart of the world which so needs to be joined by Christ the savior. So much harshness, so much demonstrations, so much intolerance rises from the heart of the world, from our hearts. Amen.
