"I HAVE SEEN THE LORD"
Mary's message to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, is the very
essence of Christianity.
Do we recognize the
presence of Jesus in our lives?
Mary Magdalene who
the church honors today did not at first recognize the Lord Jesus because her
focus was on the empty tomb and on her own grief. It took only one word from
Jesus, when He called her by name, for Mary to recognize Him. Mary's message to
the disciples, I have seen the Lord, is the very essence of Christianity. Jesus
wants us to know Him personally. In the resurrection we encounter the living
Lord Jesus who loves us personally and who shares God's kingdom with us. Jesus
gives us our faith to see the truth of His resurrection and victory over sin
and death (Eph 1:18.)
Because of Mary's
proclamation of the resurrection, Pope Paul VI called her the "apostle of
the apostles." Before the apostles began to preach the resurrection, Jesus
sent Mary to them with the message that His God and Father was now also their
God and Father and our God and Father. The message she bears fulfills the
promise first given at the beginning of the Gospel of John: in Jesus Christ, we
are all given power to become children of God. It is only Jesus who opens our
eyes to see the loving power of the resurrection and to trust that our heavenly
Father's new life makes us His children!
May we recognize in
our own life Jesus' presence, in His word, in the "breaking of the
bread," and in His church, the body of Christ Jesus.