Daily Gospel Reflection for July 22, 2019

Today's Gospel: John 20:1-2, 11-18 - Feast of St. Mary Magdalene In this passage of the Gospel we find a truth of our humanity, that through our emotions we can find Our Lord. Before Mary Magdalene could claim she had found Our Lord, she journeyed through the most basic of human emotions. She experienced Jesus where she was both spiritually and emotionally, and it began in darkness. In grief and loneliness, she went to the tomb to be near the one she loved. I can imagine her walking and weeping along the path to the tomb in the still dark morning. She probably had no idea what she would do, but wanted somehow to reconnect with Jesus. She was probably filled with anger and disbelief when she arrived and found the body of her Beloved gone! It was a violation so egregious that she was unable to understand on her own what had been done, and ran to those she thought could help her make sense of what had happened. More than once she was overcome with sorrow, and though asked repeatedly “Why are you weeping?” she could only speak the simple truth of what had been taken from her; she did not know how to find her Lord. How true for us too when we are unable to see the Lord in our distress, we ask another for help. In that other we find the hidden Jesus looking back at us. If we are attentive to the person placed before us -- for Mary Magdalene, a gardener -- the surprise can be startling! Here is our Lord hidden behind laboring humanity, for a gardener is stained by the dirt of the earth. It is then we recover our self and we share our joy of having found the Lord “in the land of the living”.

Ponder:

When all seems lost, to whom do you turn in your struggles?

Pray:

Lord, when I am lost and feel as if You are gone, help me to see Your presence in those that You have placed before me on the journey. Help me to be a Christ for them in their time of need. Amen.