In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Wednesday 22 July 2020

Saint Mary Magdalene

Word for today
Gospel of John 20,1-2.11-18

Where?

Where did they put him? The tomb was the place the religious leaders of the people had reserved to Jesus, the Son of God, because he was judged a blasphemer. It was the place in which the powerful politicians had chained Jesus, in the name of national security.
As always, for the powerful of the earth, the tomb is the most effective solution to solve difficult situations, to cap mouths and hearts which are not aligned to the mainstream, to avoid  the dangerous awakening of the peoples, to ensure victory and gain to their own benefit.
But this empty tomb, what does it mean? Perhaps his disciples and friends came to steal the body. Perhaps those afraid and uncertain men decided to give birth to a new church following the footsteps of a divine corpse, with the spiritual vitality of a crucified man, whose wisdom smells of decomposition.
Thus, where did they put Jesus? Where is Jesus? Since he is no longer in the tomb, where are we trying to put him, to place him, to bury him again? Where are religious leaders of the people burying him again, as they have not listened to His Word, and they have announced one of their own, to their own benefit? Where are they burying Jesus, whenever they mock, ridicule, humiliate all his prophets? Where are they burying Jesus, whenever those who were to be servants of the Lord, have elected themselves as the learned and wise universal holders and owners of the law, any law? Where did they put God the Master, those who were to serve mankind in his name, and failing to have truth in their heart, pretended to have in their hands, and so they took Jesus' place, they identified with him until they cancelled Him from the hearts of the people?
But where did they put him? In the tomb, where they brought him by force, violently, where they chained him to death, Jesus is not in there any longer. But then where is he? Where is Jesus now that, a part from the tomb of those days, there is no other place in heaven and on earth where the religious leaders and the powerful of the earth can bury him?
The answer comes from Jesus himself who, risen from the dead, spoke to Mary Magdalene, uttering living words after having freed himself from the chains of death. Jesus' answer is: Where two o three are gathered in my name, there am in their midst. (Matthew 18:20). Jesus is risen and lives and walks in the heart of the people who love him and seek him with a sincere heart.
Furthermore: Yet an hour is coming, and is already here when authentic worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth (John 4:23).
It is clear and evident. Jesus is in all the hearts that worship him in spirit and serve him in with actions of love and true justice. Jesus lives and shines in the hearts of all those wonderful meek people who want to get completely free from the chains of the powerful, from ignoring the evangelical procedures, from the fear of the law which serves the benefits of the powerful and oppresses the simple and weak ones. 
Jesus dwells in the hearts of those who love him dearly as the loving heart of Mary Magdalene. Twenty centuries ago human powers succeeded in locking up Jesus in a tomb, and in chaining him to death, but now he is coming back, and he is returning in the very hearts of the people, so how will they manage to lock him in a tomb again? Now that Jesus is coming, how will the powers of the world be able to stop His tide with two planks of wood and some nails? He is coming back in all His power and splendor, so how will a few moldy stones of a ruined tomb be able to lock his divine majesty?
Of his return it is written in Isaiah 8,7-8 :
It shall rise above all its channels, and overflow all its banks; 
It shall pass into Judah, and flood it all throughout: 
up to the neck it shall reach; 
It shall spread its wings the full width of your land, Immanuel!