Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, “I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he told her.
The first reading from Song of Songs expresses the love Mary must have felt for Jesus and also Mary’s inability to recognize him at once: “The Bride says: On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves–I sought him but I did not find him. I will rise then and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him whom my heart loves.”
God, thank you for giving us Mary Magdalene as an example of seeking the Lord and remaining in his love. An apostle to the apostles, she was the first to encounter the risen Christ and proclaim to them: “I have seen the Lord.” Help me understand that before I seek you, the desire must be in my heart to carry out seeking you. I ask for the grace to desire to see you—and see you!—as the day unfolds.
I have to consider the things I see daily that obscure my ability to see God. Certain routines, expectations, and long-held goals are so much a part of my vision for each day that inevitably I am missing some of the moments when God is trying to get my attention and guide me. God, come to my assistance so that these obstacles are cleared from my sight. As Emily Dickinson writes in “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”:
The Bravest—grope a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—
Either the Darkness alters—
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight—
And Life steps almost straight.
Today I want to look twice at those closest to me because what I think I’m seeing, I might not be seeing at all. When I think all is well and conforms to expectations that reinforce my habitual way of seeing, when “Life steps almost straight,” let me look again and invite God to get between me and what I’m looking at. To pull that off, I can’t rely on myself or even remember to do that; for that reason, I ask for God’s grace today to be able to see.