John 20:11-18
But Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending 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 she told them that he had said these things to her.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Called by the One We Seek
Seeing the empty tomb on Easter morning was a surprise for Mary Magdalene, but not initially a joyful one. Her understandable concern that Jesus’s body had been stolen must have brought all the pain and distress of the previous Friday rushing back.
The Resurrection is a mystery that takes time to process, for ourselves as much as for Mary two millennia ago. She does not immediately understand the full reality, even when she looks upon the Risen Jesus. Neither does Jesus seek to provide an explanation or downplay Mary’s real emotional turmoil.
He simply calls her name.
The Easter season invites us to embrace the mystery of the Resurrected Lord. At the end of a long Lent, we may still not have all the answers or resolutions we desire. We have something far more wonderful: the one whom we seek.
Listen for Jesus calling you by name today.
—Brennan Dour, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic and social studies teacher at Loyola High School of Detroit.
Prayer
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
all I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
That is enough for me.
Amen.
—Suscipe Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola