Daily Gospel Reflection

Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.

March 30, 2024

Holy Saturday
Mk 16:1-7
Listen to the Audio Version

When the sabbath was over,
Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome
bought spices so that they might go and anoint him.
Very early when the sun had risen,
on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb.
They were saying to one another,
“Who will roll back the stone for us
from the entrance to the tomb?”
When they looked up,
they saw that the stone had been rolled back;
it was very large.
On entering the tomb they saw a young man
sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe,
and they were utterly amazed.
He said to them, “Do not be amazed!
You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here.
Behold the place where they laid him.
But go and tell his disciples and Peter,
‘He is going before you to Galilee;
there you will see him, as he told you.’”

Reflection

Paul Mullaney '81
ND Parent
Share a Comment

Mark’s Holy Saturday Gospel is the zenith not only to the Easter Vigil’s extensive lineup of scriptural readings but to the Holy Week accounts of Jesus’ Passion, death, and resurrection. It is the turning point, the climax, of Christ’s earthly story from death to life.

The tomb is empty. Christ has risen.

Granted, the apostles and Jesus’ other followers had not yet comprehended the complete perspective of what the empty tomb would signal—a perspective we can understand and embrace now, knowing the coming significance of Pentecost and having all the New Testament scriptures at our fingertips.

So today, as Easter people, we celebrate that Good News. And we can look at that open tomb as an open invitation from our risen Christ, who offers us his everlasting and unconditional love
and wants us to come more fully into communion with him.

Just as Mary Magdalene and the others wondered who would “roll back the stone for us,” it was done for them. Jesus provides for all of us an open entry, a rolled-back stone, to start and enhance our union with him.

What a powerful invitation, especially in this year of Eucharistic Revival, when Americans will journey to Indianapolis this July for the National Eucharistic Congress. We have the opportunity to personally encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, as he died and rose from the dead to make this
gift possible for us.

Mark’s Gospel account paints a bright picture of making this possible, noting that the sun had risen before Jesus’ followers approached the tomb. He also tells us the story takes place on the eighth day (the sabbath was over), the start of a new week.

What an opportunity for all of us to start anew, wherever our relationship with Jesus might be.

Prayer

Easter Mass Preface

Almighty God, through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, you overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life. We celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection. Grant that we may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Saint of the Day

Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka

Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka was a Franciscan nun condemned to death under the Nazis for her opposition to the regime.

Blessed Maria was born in 1894 in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was baptized Helena. Helena's father was a shoemaker. When she was very young, Helena's family moved to Vienna, the capital, and she grew up in the bustling city.

As a young woman, at the exciting turn of the twentieth century, Helena found work in Vienna first as a salesclerk, and then as a nurse. While working as a nurse in the hospital, she came into contact with the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity. Despite being surrounded by the glamor and comforts of city life as a young woman, Maria was attracted to these religious sisters' simple and self-giving way of life. Helena joined their community at the age of 20, taking the name Maria Restituta after an early Christian martyr.

As the brightness of the new century faded into the horror of war, Maria continued to serve as a nurse in the hospital during World War I. Eventually, through her skill and dedication, Maria became the head surgical nurse at her hospital. When the nationalist-socialist regime came to power, in the inter-war years of the 1930's, Maria Restituta was not afraid to speak out against it. When the hospital built a new wing, Maria placed a crucifix inside every room. The Nazi government demanded that she remove the crucifixes, but Maria refused. Clearly, a principled, stubborn woman was going to be an obstacle, so the Nazis made up their minds to remove her. The Nazis wanted to arrest her but were prevented from doing so immediately because Maria was so indispensable to the hospital.

A doctor who supported the Nazis eventually betrayed Maria and handed her over to them on a trumped-up false charge. In 1942, as Maria was coming out of an operation, she was arrested by the Nazi police and sentenced to death for treason. Maria was given the choice to renounce her religious community and thus to spare her life. She declined.

During more than a year in prison, she cared for other prisoners. In one of her letters from that time, she wrote, “It does not matter how far we are separated from everything, no matter what is taken from us: the faith that we carry in our hearts is something no one can take from us. In this way, we build an altar in our own hearts.”

The Nazis beheaded Maria on March 30, 1943—she was only 48.

Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka, staunch in the face of Nazi occupation and a culture of death—pray for us!


Image Credit: Our featured image of Bl. Maria Restituta Kafka is in the public domain. Last accessed November 15, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.