Gospel
Jn 20:1-2, 11-18
On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
"They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don't know where they put him."
Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping.
And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
and saw two angels in white sitting there,
one at the head and one at the feet
where the Body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?"
She said to them, "They have taken my Lord,
and I don't know where they laid him."
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?"
She thought it was the gardener and said to him,
"Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary!"
She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
"Rabbouni," which means Teacher.
Jesus said to her,
"Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.
But go to my brothers and tell them,
'I am going to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.'"
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,
"I have seen the Lord,"
and then reported what he told her.
Reflection
I think what stuck out to me the most in this Gospel was how Mary Magdalene did not recognize Jesus when he was standing right in front of her. How could she not recognize it was Him who spoke to her? She was a loyal and dutiful disciple who spent much time with Jesus, in fact she was the first one at the tomb to mourn or check on the body which shows just how much she cared. Yet, in her anguish and distress, she failed to recognize Him, mistaking Him for a gardener. When I reflected on this and put myself in her shoes I could better understand. She had just seen Him die and suffer in the most brutal of ways and laid to rest in a tomb that she then found empty the very next day. Of course, she would be distraught and think the worst—that His body had been stolen and possibly mutilated. So, when she was weeping in front of the tomb and someone happened to come by and ask why she was crying, it’s no wonder she did not know it was Jesus and assumed it was merely a gardener. However, I think that it makes this next moment all the more beautiful that when Jesus called Mary by name He was able to cut through her insurmountable grief and reach her allowing her to then recognize it was Jesus standing before her.
I think this is a common reaction to grief, even nowadays it can cloud our perception and understanding and leave us hopelessly depressed. Mary’s overwhelming sense of loss and devastation at finding the body missing likely prevented her from seeing what was right before her eyes. This experience is not exclusive to Mary Magdalene, even today in moments of deep sorrow and despair, we might not recognize the presence of God or the ways in which He is working in our lives. But God knows us each by name, he created us and truly knows each and every one of us and is calling out our names we only have to be like Mary and listen.
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