John 20,11-18 – Tuesday between the Octave of Easter
There is a profound effect that pain can have on our lives: it can make us blind. Suffering, when it is great, can prevent us from seeing clearly what is in front of us.
This is precisely the experience of Mary Magdalene in today’s Gospel. Mary sees Jesus, speaks to him, asks him questions, yet she does not recognize him. She mistakes him for the gardener. Pain clouds her gaze. It is not the absence of Jesus, but an inability to recognize him.
Yet it is precisely within this experience of loss that the Risen One makes his way. Jesus does not impose himself with a sensational sign, but makes a simple and decisive gesture: calls her by name. «Mary!». It is a fundamental step. As if it meant that, even when pain disorientates us, even when we can no longer understand, we remain known, called, protected.
Pain can confuse us, but it does not erase our identity. Indeed, sometimes right through the test we can rediscover who we really are. The masks fall, the illusions crumble, and what is essential remains. Pain, despite its harshness, can become a place of truth. Easter, then, is also this: knowing that inside our desperation there is someone who seeks us and calls us. It doesn’t leave us alone in the dark, but enters right there, where we can no longer see. And when Maria hears her name called, she finally recognizes it. And from that moment his life changes: “I saw the Lord!”. And this is how some pains that seemed like the end were instead the beginning of something else.
