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BISHOP MICHAEL MORRISSEY |
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With jubilation Mary Magdalene exclaimed to sceptical Apostles her great news, “I have seen the Lord”! John 20:18 The Apostles were still trying to process and understand their earlier experience of the day having responded to Mary’s previous declaration and rushing out to find only an empty tomb! On finding the cloths, ‘..the disciples then went back home’ John 20:10. Perhaps they were fearful, perhaps devastated, just as Mary was. But they didn’t dare hope as Mary did, who stayed, determined to find out where they had put him, so she could remove him. She wanted to be with him. Understandably there wasn’t an immediate acceptance by the disciples at the words Mary was now heralding. Words of great joy and hope washed away her earlier experience of devastation on discovering the empty tomb and assuming the body of her Lord had been taken away. The Jubilee Year of Hope, proclaimed by Pope Francis, is the antidote offered to a world that lacks hope with so many conflicts, starvation, lack of personal freedom, respect for culture and tradition, incessant demands for decisions without proper considerations and news feeds that can be unsettling for so many people in our communities. “Hope does not disappoint since the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” Romans 5:5. That first Easter morn in Jerusalem Mary Magdalene did not walk away from her unfulfilled hopes and desires but remained faithful to her desire to be close to the Lord. It was the very love of God poured into her heart at her very first encounter with Jesus that gave her that hope. Notice in the encounter with Jesus, the risen Lord, listens to Mary Magdalene expressing her feelings of loss before gently lifting her out of her grief by simply calling her by name, “Mary”. At that moment Mary’s life is changed forever. The darkness of despair was replaced with the light of eternal hope and joy. From her encounter with Jesus in the garden, Mary becomes for all of us the ‘Apostle of Hope’. The love of God poured into her heart strengthened her to not be so overwhelmed by negativity and darkness and give up looking for him, to be close to him. During this Jubilee Year Pope Francis reminds us we are Pilgrims of Hope. All of us, including Pope Francis, are on a journey of faith, not only for ourselves, but in communion with everyone who journeys with us. Being Christ to one another, we are a people offering God’s love and hope to those, either in our faith family or the wider community, who are in need of accompaniment through the difficulties or sadnesses in their lives. One of Pope Francis’s famous quotes is the “Church is like a field hospital” where people with broken hearts and lives can come into our communities and be welcomed with mercy and compassion. “Even if our history appears burdensome, complicated, perhaps even ruined to us, we always have the possibility of consigning it to God and setting out anew on our journey.” Pope Francis. May our gratitude for the times we have experienced mercy and compassion in our own lives, when we’ve experienced the love of God poured into our hearts, be made more real through our encounters with others, where we can share a hope with them that is eternal. This is a tangible way of making our immediate world around us a place of hope, revealing God’s vision for humanity made eternal through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. May this Easter be a blessed time for you, your family, friends and community, full of hope and joy where the eternal light of the Risen Lord never grows dim. image @cathopic |
