- I think it’s a cop-out to say “Jesus only told Mary to tell the Apostles, and not preach.”
Actually my dear friend, I will have to disagree with you here. That is not a cop-out, it is scripture. Interpret it as you want, I prefer to read what it says.
There’s no difference. Jesus entrusted a woman to declare to His all-male Apostles that He was to ascend to the Father.
Because he wanted it to specifically be a woman or because the faith of the woman (remember Mary Magdalene was not the only woman at the Tomb) never faltered?
Also, to say that you don’t see any assumption that the Apostles would believe Mary seems to question the good judgment of the Lord - do you assume that Jesus couldn’t find anyone better and so settled with Mary to deliver the news of His resurrection?
You my dear friend made the statement “
with the implicit assumption that they will believe her…”. I don’t see that in scripture, sorry.
Further, if I look at Luke, I see clearly that the Apostles *did not *initially believe what the woman had told them:But at daybreak on the first day of the week they 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. 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.
If we read all four Gospels, we see that both Jesus (John) and Angels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) tell woman (not just Mary Magdalene) that Jesus has risen. Again, I see this not so much as our Lord choosing these woman so much as their faith being rewarded by being the first to know of the resurrection.
- Thomas didn’t believe what the Apostles told him of Christ… read it over.
Sorry, I don’t think you can have it both ways. Scripture says Thomas was not with the Apostles
when Jesus came to them (John 20:24) but it does not say Thomas was missing when Mary told the Apostles what Jesus had told them (John 20:18). If the implicit assumption is that the Apostles would believe Mary, why would Thomas not believe her?
I think what Scripture tells us is that it was the women who were first to the tomb, and as the result of that were the first to learn of the resurrection. They went and told the Apostles (hey, who could keep that a secret?). If the Apostles had been first to the tomb, they would have found out for themselves.
By the way, to go back to your OP:
Why do we not allow women to preach? (I know Paul says women are not to preach in Church, but Christ doesn’t seem to have a problem with women and their being entrusted to preach - and about His glorious Resurrection no less!)
Jesus in no way entrusts the woman to preach. He entrusts them to tell his Apostles what they saw.
And to be clear, if by preaching you mean giving homilies at Mass, woman are not allowed to do that because Jesus declared that Holy Orders are not open to them. If by preaching you mean proclaiming the good news at conferences, leading Bible Study, etc. then the Church does allow women to do this.
My apologies, maybe I am lost in the weeds here - what specifically are you asking again?
