As in these days, there are many joggers in the Gospel of Day of Easter. At dawn, after discovering the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene “runs» to find the other 2 disciples. Frightened by the absence of the loved one, she does not admit the incomprehensible. The tears she had shed on the feet of Jesus at Simon the Pharisee’s house and at the feet of the cross at the Calvary, reappear in her wounded eyes that she no longer saw the body of the One who was atrociously crucified.

Aren’t these tears those of the families bereaved by the death of one of their own, put on the cross by the epidemic that is raging? The law of the country and the Church forbids them to accompany the crucified man to his tomb.  They were taken away from what they thought was most precious, the last gesture of love they would have wanted to express before the burial.

Peter and John “run together.” The distance is respected since the youngest arrives first, but it is the elder who has the honor of entering the tomb. “Peter sees the shroud that had surrounded the head of Jesus.”

Today the shroud reappeared from Turin to the ends of the earth. At the stopovers of the nations, he prints the crucified of terrorism, jihadists, and all the pandemics of the planet. Thus, he comes to inhabit the silence of The Holy Friday, of the Vatican Square where the man in white approaches to the rhythm of Peter to show him his tenderness.

“That’s when the other disciple came in... He saw and believed.”

The other is the one who wore the white blouse of the resurrection, the color of the light of the dawn of the first day of the week.

On this blessed day, I join the whole Church, dressed in her festive clothes to become “the other disciple,” the quickest jogger to see and believe the One who brings out from the tomb the life that does not end. Hallelujah!

Lyon on April 12, 2020, Easter Day.

Michel Cartatéguy.