the apostle of the resurrection: 1st week of Easter Tuesday

Mary Magdalene thought she was speaking to a gardener.  She did not recognize Jesus immediately.  It was only when Jesus called out her name that she finally recognized that it is the risen Lord.  Jesus revealed the resurrection to her.  She did not discover it herself.  Though she searched for him, she did not find him.  In fact in her despair she came up with a wrong conclusion about the empty tomb.  She thought that since the tomb is empty the body of Jesus must have been stolen.  She did not even recognize him who was standing beside her.  She talked to somebody she thought was a gardener, and she even thought that the gardener was the grave robber.

The resurrection was revealed to Mary Magdalene.  Jesus revealed it to her.  For this Mary Magdalene would be called the Apostle of the resurrection for it was to her that the resurrection was first revealed and it was through her that that fact was to be made known to others.

This clearly shows that our eyes can fool us, our eyes can be a prey to illusions.  And so is our hearing, even our logic, our thoughts and eventually our conclusions.  Mary Magdalene saw what she thought was a gardener who took away the body of the Lord.  Be wary of what you see, hear, think and conclude.  We are in still in a world where truth can be apparently true, where goodness can be seemingly good, where ugliness can be beautifully wrapped. 

And yet the opposite may also be true.  Most often what we shun as ugly and repulsive, may be in fact what God wants us to do, and what we dismiss as lowly and simple may be the ones that God has called us to serve.  Not all the things and actions that could really make a difference in our life are at once obviously good and holy.  The gospel today is not asking us to be less trusting.  It is asking us to be more discerning for ours is a journey of faith and this journey is not reliant merely on things immediately apparent to our sight.