Gospel (Mk 16,9-15) - Risen in the morning, on the first day after the Sabbath, Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had driven out seven demons. She went to announce it to those who had been with him and were in mourning and crying. But when they heard that he was alive and that he had been seen by her, they did not believe her. After this, he appeared in a different form to two of them, as they were traveling towards the countryside. They too returned to announce it to the others; but they didn't believe them either. In the end he also appeared to the Eleven, while they were at table, and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him resurrected. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

The Liturgy of the Church announces to us once again the appearance of the risen Jesus to Magdalene, according to the narration of the evangelist Mark. Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus had freed from seven demons, is also for the second evangelist the "first" announcer of the resurrection. She, "whom she loved very much", and who for this reason much of herself was forgiven, receives the privilege of being the first disciple of the Risen One, the first to whom the task of announcing the resurrection is given. The apostles, once again showing their narrow-mindedness, do not believe her; they are still slaves to the mentality of this world and above all to their forgetfulness. It is not enough to be "in mourning and crying" to love Jesus. That is, our personal feelings, our thoughts, our considerations are not enough, it does not matter whether they are good or not, what counts in the journey of the Christian faith is the listening to someone else. Humility, which is the door to access faith, requires listening, that is, being attentive to something that is not ours, which comes from another. Here is the voice of a woman who saw the risen Lord. From the first moment of the resurrection, Jesus uses the weakness of this woman to confound the presumption - even a pained pessimism can be presumptuous - of her disciples. The Byzantine tradition with great spiritual wisdom calls Mary Magdalene "the apostle of the apostles". The evangelist then takes up, albeit in a few lines, the meeting of Jesus with the two disciples of Emmaus (narrated by Luke in much more detail) and reiterates that he had not yet appeared to the apostles, that is, to those whom he had placed at the head of his Church. And once again the apostles do not want to believe the two disciples who tell what had happened to them. The evangelist seems to want to underline the difficulty in believing in the resurrection from the beginning of the Church, from the first day and on the part of the apostles, of those on whom the Church must be founded. But the difficulties and disbelief that the apostles have in believing in the resurrection cannot slow down their haste to announce Jesus' victory over death to everyone. Here are a woman and two anonymous disciples who, without hesitation, immediately go to communicate what they have seen and heard. This evangelical passage suggests to us that every single disciple - beyond the ministry and service they perform - is entrusted with the serious and exhilarating task of communicating the resurrection of Jesus, his victory over evil and death. This is why the first announcers of the resurrection were not the apostles but, in fact, a woman and two anonymous disciples. It is the task of every believer to communicate the Gospel of Easter to everyone. Of course, the conclusion of the narrative opens the gaze on the entire Church - the Eleven whom Jesus rebukes for their unbelief, and also the other disciples - sent to communicate the Gospel of Easter to the ends of the world so that every creature is enveloped by its liberating force.