Alliance for Catholic Education
Easter Sunday - Sunday, April 5th
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…. Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20: 11-18)
When I think of Mary Magdalene this morning, I find many parallels between her and us. Mary, almost to her unbelief, finds herself at the tomb of one she loves so dearly, and who she was with only days before. We too, more often than we’d like, experience many losses of precious people and possessions, as we journey through life.
When Mary arrives at the tomb this morning, she is heartbroken, with all the attendant confusion that comes with loss. The first words Mary speaks are ones of confusion: “I don’t know….” “I don’t know where they have taken him.”
These are our words all too often, when we’ve experienced a cross: “I don’t know, I can’t understand what’s just happened.” We inescapably experience loss and heartbreak. It is part of being human. And with Mary Magdalene, especially on our more painful days, we can hear some part of us say, “And I don’t know where to find my way again.”
We are, so often, Mary Magdalene. And so, with her, when Christ seems absent, we are confused, sad, lost. But at such times, we are also one more thing.
With Mary Magdalene, we are called.
As Mary walks amidst her loss, she suddenly hears a voice. And that voice speaks the most beautiful word that could have been spoken – the one word that Mary needed to hear from the one who gave her life meaning – her name, “Mary.” Almost immediately she knows it is the voice of the one she loves. It’s the voice that called her name every day before this one. The name he called when he needed her, when he laughed with her, when he cried with her. Every day they were together, she heard him say her name.
So when she hears that familiar voice speak her name today, she knows the great and awesome Easter truth – a truth that is ours today too: “Even though I am at his tomb, the one I love is alive.” “Even though I have experienced loss, disappointment, suffering, none of these have the final word in my life; none of them define me.”
What does define me? What gives my life direction and purpose?
The response of Easter morning is: the One who loves me. The One who, this morning of the Resurrection, calls my name, to live with him forever.
Thank you for walking through Lent with us. From all of us in the Alliance for Catholic Education and the Institute for Educational Initiatives, we wish you and yours a blessed Easter season.