Against all human hope, Mary Most Holy was the only one to keep faith in the resurrection and the victory of her divine Son.

Newsroom (19/04/2022 08:30, Gaudium Press) Aleluia! Aleluia! Aleluia! Jesus has risen from the dead! The Holy Catholic Church is all dressed up in joy and festivity. Once again we hear the pealing of the bells that have been silent since Holy Thursday, we see the splendor of the golden vestments after fifty days of purple vestments. Everything is clothed in joy and triumph, because we are commemorating the very raison d’être of our faith. Rightly said Tertullian, “Add up all the solemnities of the Gentiles and you will not reach our fifty days of Easter.”[1]

In fact, all the liturgical celebrations celebrated throughout the year revolve around the solemnity of Christ’s resurrection.

Mary Most Holy, bastion of hope

All this joy and jubilation also involves the readings of the Mass: a proclamation of the good works worked by the Divine Master (Acts 10:34; 37-43); the remembrance of the future glory that is reserved for us in heaven, thanks to the redemption (Col 3:1-4) and the responsorial psalm brings us a song full of exultation for this day that the Lord has made for us (Ps 117).

However, we come across a detail perhaps little commented on: the absence of data about Our Lady.

We see the account of what happened when St. Mary Magdalene went to Our Lord’s tomb. She, as well as the other holy women, went there with the hope of somehow embalming the sacred body of Jesus.

However, the Mother of Jesus was not among them. What was the reason for her absence?

Many theologians affirm that the first person to whom Our Lord appeared after the resurrection was Our Lady.[2] Thus, one sees both the humility of Mary Most Holy, hidden from human eyes, and her faith, firmly placed in the fulfillment of the prophecy, made so many times by the Savior Himself, that He would rise again on the third day by His divine power.

Thus, it is clear how at no time did the Queen of the universe have the slightest doubt about the resurrection, but on the contrary, she hoped against all hope. Even at times when all seemed lost, at times when the sufferings of her soul seemed to have reached their peak and she would faint with grief at the sight of her beloved Son being scourged, insulted, tortured and ignominiously condemned to death, and even as the slab of the tomb was rolled away from the mouth of the cave, seeing her adorable body buried, and with it, perhaps, the hopes of all her followers, even so, in those poignant hours, she continued to have faith and hope that He would triumph after all.

What lesson can we draw from this reflection? One of the many is, without a doubt, to admire and love this heroic attitude of the Mother of God, trying to imitate it in our lives; having, moreover, a firm hope that God will win.

By Jerome Sequeira Vaz

[1] TERTULLIAN. De idolatria, c. XIV: ML 1, 683.

[2] Cf. CLÁ DIAS, John Scognamíglio: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels. New Insights on the Gospels – Volume 5. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012, v. 5, p. 274.