the tomb and she believes someone has taken the body of Jesus from the
tomb. Later she would meet Jesus in the garden and thinks he is the gardener until He speaks to her. "Mary".In reflecting on this Easter Gospel account, I place myself in the sandals of Mary of Magdala and experience doubt and fear when I see the empty tomb. Where and who has taken the body of Jesus? I run to tell the apostles that He
is gone! I go back to the garden later and meet Jesus and do not recognize Him, believing He is the gardener. When Jesus speaks, I recognize Him.
There is a sense of overwhelming joy and excitement!
In our day, we also go to the tomb on Easter morning. We know that Jesus is risen and we find an empty tomb. At Easter Eucharist we read the Gospel account of the Resurrection and we meet the risen Christ sacramentally in the Eucharist. We too experience joy and peace in His presence. He sends us forth at the end of Mass to experience His risen life in all who we meet.We are called to bring Christ to others and called to receive the risen Christ in those we meet.
Yes! Christ is truly risen and we rejoice and will one day experience Him fully in eternity. Happy Easter!
Sr. Barbara Woeste, OSB
Disappointment turns into joy; joy turns into disappointment. We know which we prefer. Would it better not to feel so strongly? Certainly not, the gift is to feel strongly. Love him with all our kardias the heart, a Greek word, later cor, part of a longer word, with all our emotions. The Hebrew word lev was emotional or was it more cognitive, or was it soul? How I forget; how disappointed I am with myself these days; given a gift, I was disappointed with it. I said, Is that what you give me? It was a bit broken, but it could be mended, and when it was mended, then later I know how happy I should be with his love. Now I am old and I understand that over there, in an unexpected place, I will find supreme goodness which is Himself. Let me be glad for your love, Lord, amen.
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