Mt 28:8-15
So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’
If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Transformed by Something Marvelous
Having borne the unbearable together over several traumatic days, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary return to the tomb of Jesus crucified. Whatever drew these devoted women there that morning – love, sorrow, fidelity, emptiness, curiosity, a steadfast spirit of accompaniment – these unwavering disciples experienced an earth-shaking, dramatic inversion of reality as they had previously known it. Something entirely new is dawning. By steering in the direction of loss and emptiness, emptiness itself (theirs and the tomb’s) becomes an inexplicable encounter with faint hopes dramatically fulfilled. Fearful, yet overjoyed, they run and tell Jesus’s disciples that something marvelous is about to happen. They run until something even more marvelous happens directly to them. Jesus meets them along their way, and they embrace.
When has Jesus embraced my emptiness and transformed it to something new and joy-filled?
With whom am I called to share the hope and promise of this exceptionally Good News?
—Patricia Feder serves as the administrator of the Office of Ignatian Spirituality for the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province.
Prayer
Therefore, my heart is glad
and my soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in confidence;
Because you will not
abandon my soul to the
nether world,
nor will you suffer your faithful one
to undergo corruption.
You will show me the path to life,
fullness of joys in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever.”
—Psalm 16:9-11