The Easter Connection

Appreciating the Resurrection through female eyes

04/20/2025

Luke 24:1-12 At daybreak on the first day of the week the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day." And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.

Louis Bouyer, in his fascinating little book called Woman in the Church, makes an important point that is deeply and directly connected to Easter. See if you can catch the Easter connection. He writes: “A rabbi recently explained to me, with humor not devoid of meaning, that the Jewish law prescribes religious obligations for men, while it does not impose anything definite on women, and he observed that, far from supposing some superiority on the part of man (because he gets religious jobs], it implies quite the contrary.”

Then Bouyer adds: “[In other words], man would not serve God if God did not take the trouble to recall him constantly to the task, while woman does not need anyone to tell her to do these [religious] things” (pp. 65-66). Here is a Catholic example of that Jewish principle. Some of you may remember many years ago that only boys were allowed to be altar servers. But ever since we removed that requirement of boys serving guess who has flooded the sanctuary?

That’s right: beautiful little girls. “Men have to be constantly recalled to the task of serving God, but women do not need anyone to tell them to do these religious things.” By the way, loved to serve at Mass as a teenager. But do you know why? Because it made the Mass go by faster! That’s why God called me to be a priest to make up for all those fast Masses: now I have to say 3 Masses every Sunday!

In other words, women have a gift, an intuition, an instinct – Pope St. John Paul II called it a “feminine genius” – that keeps them connected to what is spiritual and supernatural. Now, don’t get wrong me, men have intuitions and instincts, too, but we are just keenly connected to sports, beer, and power tools. Now, both instincts are necessary for life, but one gift is of a higher order. Can you guess which one?

And if by chance you cannot guess, today’s gospel gives us a good hint. Who are the first to hear and believe in Jesus’ resurrection? It is the women, especially Mary Magdalene, whom Pope Francis dubbed as “the Apostle to the Apostles.” That is, before the apostles preached to the whole world, a woman had to preach to them. And by the way, do you remember how the men reacted when the women first shared the gospel – the Good News – with them? Luke writes: “Their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.”

It’s funny how in the gospel of John after the women report the resurrection the men have gone back to fishing. Fishing was the first century equivalent of sports, beer, and power tools. How many men blow off their wives or girlfriends who try to tell them the importance of faith in Jesus? Or, how many men are here today because a woman – grandmother, mother, wife, girlfriend – invited you to come? Don’t raise your hand, gentlemen, I already know the answer.

By the way, would you like to know the deepest reason why women intuit the importance of faith in Jesus? Because the way the Church relates to Jesus is as the Bride to her Bridegroom. That is, when Christians – men and women taken together act corporately (as one body, one corpus), we discover our true corporate identity is feminine, you might even say bridal.

This corporate identity explains why babies are baptized wearing a long white gown. Have you noticed how both boys and girls wear a long, white gown, usually 20 sizes too big? You see, the gown’s length is meant to imitate the long train of a bride’s wedding dress. Baptismal gowns are so big and overflowing because the baby is supposed to resemble a bride. Why? because it becomes part of the Bride of Christ (the Church) at Baptism.

Even the white robes altar servers, deacons, and priests wear are called “albs” which means “white” (like albino) and are reminders that we’ve been baptized and are incorporated into the Bride of Christ. In other words, this is the feminine genius: to catch that how we relate to Jesus not as “bruh” but as a “bride.” And that is why women easily “get religion” – like they did at the first Easter Sunday – and sadly most men will “get religion” only at the last Easter Sunday.

Let me leave you with this intriguing thought from G. K. Chesterton. In his book with a great title, “What’s Wrong with the World.” He observed that men actually look like women when they hold the highest offices in society. He wrote: “When men wish to be impressive as judges, priests, or kings, they wear dresses, the long trailing robes of female dignity.”

He went on: “The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear dresses when they wish to govern.” In other words, men do “artificially” in the courtroom, in the royal palace, and in the church sanctuary what women do “naturally” all day long at home with their children. That is, men need to get in touch with their feminine side for the sake of society. And when we do get in touch with our feminine side, we might also get in touch with Jesus.

Praised be Jesus Christ!