And Jesus Said “Mary!”

We place in each small hand a tiny mustard seed.  One child sits contemplating in awe how this tiny seed (much smaller even than those we find here in the U.S. supermarkets) will grow into “the largest of shrubs.”  Some of the others however, start to plant them—in the nose, in the mouth; one drops to the floor.  One three-year old suggests that we plant it in his belly button. “There is dirt there!” he insists.  It is apparent, however, that the seed will have to await slightly deeper soil.

Another day we present the story of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. We move the small figures of the Shepherd and the sheep from the fold, out into the green pastures where they are fed and cared for, as we read the words of Scripture to them.  “Jesus says, ‘I am the Good Shepherd….I call my sheep by name.  My sheep know my voice and they follow me…’”

“I wonder, who are these sheep who are so blessed?  Who are these sheep that Jesus so loves and cares for?”  We ask but don’t answer, as we leave the child to work with the materials as often as needed until he is ready to receive this mystery.

One day we knew that Lila* had finally received this mystery when, as she moved the little sheep one by one into the pasture, she called out: “Aiden!  Paola!  Isabel!”  Along with her own name, she called the names of each of her classmates.

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In today’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene goes to tomb of Jesus.  This Jesus who had cast from her seven demons—seven being the Hebrew number that signified completeness.  She had been “completely” given over to this evil, but now her heart has been completely captured by Jesus.  This Jesus whose cross she stood beneath, there with His Immaculate Mother, watching Him die.

“While it is still dark”—in the dark of despair and grief and disbelief—she hastens to the tomb, only to find the stone rolled away. She runs to tell John and Peter who come and look (and John believed) but then stays out there weeping.  As she bends over the tomb, she sees “two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been.”  They ask her why she is weeping, and she answers, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”  Then Scripture tells us “When she had said this she turned around…”

Before getting to what she saw when she turned around, it is worth pausing to recognize the remarkable fact that Mary Magdalene seems to be completely unmoved even by conversations with angels!  Not only does she express no surprise that they would be there, she turns away after she has answered them.  She is looking for Someone Else.

And turning around, she: “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.’”

Mary who so loved Jesus that she stood faithfully under His cross and has come now even to His grave, does not recognize Him.  Until:

Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’

She turned and said to him ‘Rabbouni,’ which means teacher.”

It is only when He calls her by name that she recognizes Him.

Indeed, in several resurrection appearances the close friends of Jesus fail to recognize Him physically, for He is preparing them to recognize Him in new ways, the ways in which we also will come to recognize Him.

The love of God for us is not generic.  We are not a face in the crowd to Him.  We did not come into existence, nor are we held in existence, accidentally.

Each of us was and is particularly and personally loved into being by God, and His love continues as a particular and personal reality.

In the First Reading, Peter tells the crowd on Pentecost the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and they ask him: “What are we to do?”  He replies, “Repent and be baptized.”

At Baptism, we are called by name.  It is a specific part of the baptismal rite, that the Church asks of the parents, “What name do you give this child?”  and then the person to be baptized is called by name “N. I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…”

We are invited to respond to this love personally as well.  As Christians we do not just say prayers out into the universe, hoping that some being is out there on the other end to receive it.  Prayer is conversation with God, with a very real Who on the other end.

A teacher of mine used to say that on the Cross there was enough love and grace to save every soul that ever existed or ever will exist.  But we must choose to receive.  Imagine by analogy that a gazillionaire wrote to each of us a personal check for a million dollars.  It would be the height of silliness to frame the check and hang it on the wall and honor it as a mere symbol.  Rather, we must cash it, sign our name to it—to receive its value.

The love of Jesus is there for each of us.  He calls each of us by name, and longs to hear His name on our lips as well.

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*For purposes of this reflection, I’ve changed the names of the children in our class.  But Jesus calls them directly by their real names. 😊  

 

Featured Image Credit: Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov [Public domain]