I have seen the Lord!

John 20: 10 -18

Jesus said to her, "Mary". She turned towards him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" ......Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

John describes how Mary Magdalene's mourning is transformed into joy. While Peter and John return home, Mary remains at the tomb. She wants to remain near the place where her beloved Lord was buried...even if it to see the body of her beloved Lord, to remind her of him. As it was, her loving patience bore fruit. The one she mistook for the gardener "calls her name" and in that moment her mourning is transformed, her eyes are opened, and she recognizes the One by whom she knows herself accepted and loved.

"The Lord calls his servant by the name she has often heard...and the servant knows the voice of her own Lord....I think, or rather I am sure...that she responded to the gentle tone...with which he was accustomed to call: 'Mary'...what joy filled that voice, so gentle and full of love...He could not have put it more simply and clearly...'I know who you are and what you want; behold me...do not weep, behold me....I am he whom you seek'. And once the tears are changed; ..where once they were wrung from a heart broken and self-tormenting...they flow now from a heart exulting" (St. Anselm)

Our mission as Christians, just as Mary's was, is to proclaim the good news of the Resurrection. We can do this in several ways. Sometimes, though, we focus so much on getting the 'facts' right that we present a message that comes across as rationalistic fundamentalism. However, this was never so for those first believers in Jesus. For them, experience and theology were not contradictory. For them, the experiential element was important. Our head and heart are mutually dependent.

Mary has not only heard the words of the Risen One. She has seen and experienced him, she has encountered him. And she shares with others what she herself has experienced. If I ponder on my own life, I too will realize that I have 'seen' the Lord and can witness to this 'heart knowing'. The Risen One is found all around us: among those who work for the poor and marginalized, between friends who touch each other in the depths of their hearts, as God's majesty and beauty shine forth..in nature, in music and art. The Risen One lives in our hearts....and as we listen to the depths of our hearts....we do, in stillness hear the quiet whisper.

As I begin to 'look for the Lord'... I will see other people with fresh eyes, I will have a different perspective on the day's events...and recognize that there is more, much more to my everyday life than just duty and performance, than just effort and responsibility. In the bustle as much as in the sacred place of prayer ....the Risen One comes to me. The Resurrection is experienced as something new breaking forth....every moment. God does break into my world. And sometimes, in a quiet moment, or perhaps when my heart is breaking, I may 'hear' him call me by name.