relating with Jesus in the sacraments - 1st week easter tuesday

Our gospel today 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.

When Jesus told Mary Magdalene, “stop holding on to me, or touch me not, the famous title of Jose Rizal’s novel Noli me Tangere, is also an invitation for us that in our relationship with Jesus we should not focus on physicality, that is to see Jesus to relate to Jesus in his flesh and blood, in his miracles, in his apparitions. Rather we are invited to relate with Jesus in the sacraments especially in the eucharist, confessions and in marriage especially.  And also to relate to Jesus in his word by reading the bible.  Stop holding to my physical body – hold on to me in the sacraments that you received, hold on to me in holy communion, hold on to me in my words in the gospel, in marriage, in prayer..  In our day and age this is where we find Jesus, this is where Jesus relates with us.