In the prologue of the Acts of the Apostles, went on the Pope, St. Luke said that the resurrected Lord "showed himself to the Apostles alive, after his passion, with lots of proofs, appearing to them for forty days". "When the sacred author wrote that ‘he showed himself alive’ pointed out the Pope, – he didn’t want to say that Jesus went back to his previous life, as Lazarus did. Easter means ‘passage’, and not ‘return’, for Jesus did not go back to the previous situation, but ‘he crossed a threshold towards a more glorious condition’", stated St. Bernard. As for the apparitions of the Risen to Mary Magdalene and Thomas, the Pope explained that "the two episodes were not in contrast", but "one helped to understand the other". Mary Magdalene, actually, "would have liked to have her Master as he was before, thinking of the cross as a dramatic memory to be forgotten". But after the Resurrection, to meet Jesus "one must not go back, but conceive the relationship with Him in a different way: it is necessary to go on!". It is pointed out by St. Bernard in the Speech About Easter, when he says that Jesus "invites us all to this new life, to this passage. We shall not see Christ by turning back". "It is what happened with Thomas", concluded the Holy Father: "Jesus shows him his wounds not to forget the cross, but to make it unforgettable in the future, too".
