Gospel: Mark 16:9-15

 

Today’s Gospel is part of a broader literary unit which presents a list or summary of diverse apparitions of Jesus to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples, to the eleven. 

 

Besides this list of apparitions in the Gospel of Mark, there are other lists of apparitions. For example, the list kept by Paul in the Letter to the Corinthians. This variety shows that at the beginning the Christians were not concerned with proving the Resurrection by means of the apparitions. For them faith in the Resurrection was so evident and alive that there was no need to prove it. The communities, existing in the midst of the immense Empire, were a living proof of the Resurrection. 

 

The list of the apparitions began to appear later, in the second generation, in order to refute the criticism of opponents.

 

Mark refers to the resistance of the disciples in refusing to believe the testimony of those who have experienced the Resurrection of Jesus. The Lord teach three things: that faith in Jesus passes through the faith in the people who give witness, nobody should be discouraged when doubt or unbelief arises in the heart, to refute the claim of those who said that the Christian is naïve and accepts any news uncritically, because the eleven had great difficulty accepting the truth of the Resurrection!

 

Today’s Gospel ends with the sending forth: “Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Gospel to all creation!” Jesus confers upon them the mission to announce the Good