Saturday in the Octave of Easterf

After His resurrection Jesus only appeared to those who believed in Him fairly seriously, never to those who had no belief in Him whatsoever.  Those He appeared to, as recorded in Scripture, run from Mary Magdalen in John's Gospel to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, with the Apostles in a sort of middle range, and each of these believers received a different grace from Jesus when He appeared.  All He needed to do was to speak Mary's name for her to melt in recognition of His identity and living presence, but to the Emmaus disciples He restored their full faith in spite of their hesitations.

Today's Gospel goes so far as to say that “Later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised.”  The Jesus of Mark is quite noticeably emotional, and this is one occurrence when He lets those feelings show.

Christ does not appear to us in the same way as He did to those who knew Him in the flesh back then, but we have the benefit of history, centuries of clarification of our knowledge of God, much teaching on what we are and are supposed to be, and the example of so many saints.  With all that helping us, do we really believe?  And if so, what kind of person has each of us become to show that belief?