Breaking the Word

Tuesday within Easter Octave – 19^th  April 2022 — Gospel: Jn 20,11-18

Life-Transforming Experience

Resurrection experience proves Mary Magdalene’s passionate love for Jesus. As a woman, she is overwhelmed by her loss and expresses tears of grief (20,11.13.15). While she is weeping and looking for risen Jesus, she sees him but does not realize it is He.  When Jesus calls her by name as “Mary”, she does recognize him and establishes a personal bond with him. In that mutual recognition she is trying to =hold on to Jesus. After that, she becomes the first chosen to announce the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. When she proclaims, “I have seen the Lord”, she is referring to an experience far deeper and more real than simply a visual sight. It is a life-transforming experience, a deeply personal and mystical encounter. It is an experience of intimate and loving recognition, where Mary has moved from the darkness to the light of faith. She has seen Jesus as Lord, and she cannot help but become the messenger of that good news to others. Paul used her credential, “I have seen the Lord”. He used it to insist on his own authority as an apostle: “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Cor 9,1). With Mary’s announcement, seeing has become an identity for the apostles and the model for transforming experience.

Monday within Easter Octave – 18^th April 2022 — Gospel: Mt 28,8-15

Unknown Evangelizers

As the women, Mary Magdalene, goes to tell the good news of the resurrection to the other disciples, the Roman guards are going to report the resurrection to the chief priests. The guards and the officials who sealed the tomb were physically strong while the disciples of Jesus lacked confidence in themselves. Therefore no one could ever remove Jesus’ body from the tomb without their knowledge. However, Jesus’ body was not stolen by the disciples but raised by God the Father. The guards by reporting “everything that had happened”, they too become unknowingly evangelizers of this great truth. The leaders in Jerusalem want Jesus to remain dead in the eyes of the people. The soldiers are persuaded with “a large sum of money” to say lie. The guards fail in their duty if they spread the news that they were fast asleep. Yet the religious leaders promise to protect them. As they bribed Judas, now they bribe the guards, and they may need to bribe Pilate, in case a report of their negligence should reach his ears. The false stories kept lingering around even decades later when Matthew wrote this gospel. However, the actual truth about resurrection was evangelized by believers as well as fabricators of falsehood.