Easter Tuesday, April 14, 2020

John 20, 11-18

Mary Magdalene 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 went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he had told her.

When our Lord appeared to his followers after his Resurrection, they often failed to recognize him, as when he walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus (cf. Luke 24, 13-35).  Theologians through the ages have speculated as to why this was.  Some have suggested that the reason has to do with the Lord’s spiritualized Body.  Others, that grief prevented them from knowing him when he appeared.  Perhaps this was the case with Mary Magdalene, her eyes blurred with tears and her mind anxious that her Lord’s Body has been stolen away, that the One she loved was not allowed peace even after his death.  We should try to try to appreciate the love Mary Magdalene had for the Lord Jesus.  We know from St. Mark that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her; we see her name in the lists of the women disciples provided by the Evangelists, so she served the Lord out of her own resources; we see her beneath the Cross, which shows her courage and her love.  

We see a hint of the Lord’s love for her when he addresses her in the Gospel reading today.  He looks at her and says one simple word, her name: “Mary!”  And at once she knew that it was Jesus.  He only uttered her name and she knew him.  She calls him, in Aramaic, “My teacher!”  And then she embraces him.  St, Matthew tells us that she and the “other Mary” who was with her “came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him” (Matthew 28, 11).  John does not tell us directly that she embraced him or in what way.  He simply tells us that Jesus next tells her to stop clinging to him, “For I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  That is, his earthly mission is now done.  We can only embrace him from now on in heaven, when we have completed our own work for him in this world.  But it was this one word, her name, that told Mary who this was before her.  It would have seemed strange to her if the gardener, whom she thought he was at first, knew her name, and so she might have wondered at this.  But there was something about the way that Jesus spoke her name, some characteristic way that he had spoken her name while he was with his disciples, that she recognized.  She heard her name spoken with such profound and deep and knowing love that it could not have been anyone else.  And at the moment she heard it, she threw herself at his feet for joy.

The Lord speaks our names.  He spoke our name at the moment of our creation, at the moment of our baptism and confirmation.  Each time, in fact that we receive a sacrament, he speaks our names.  He calls us, too, just as he called his disciples by name.  He calls us to speak to him in prayer, he calls us as we discern our vocations, he calls us in consolation when we have suffered for him.  He will call us at the end of our life on earth if we have proven ourselves worthy servants, and he will summon us by name to heaven at the final judgment. Each time, he fills the sound of our name with a tremendous love for us.  Let us throw ourselves before him in adoration in response to the love that is stronger than death.