It’s been 10 days since my last grocery delivery, and we don’t have much fresh produce left. I had bought 4 bags of Caesar salad mix (the kids’ favorite), two heads of lettuce, 10 mini cucumbers and 2 containers of cherry tomatoes. All gone within a couple days!
It’s the strangest phenomenon. Apparently, everyone in this family now wants to eat salad. Three kids who are generally good eaters, but don’t usually clamor for salad, now eat two or three helpings at a meal.
I was hoping to have salad for lunches for John and I at least for a few days longer. So, if I’m honest, I was feeling a little put out about the kids eating so much of it.
And I thought to myself, I’ll never take salad for granted again!
I’ve read a lot of talk lately on social media about wanting to get back to “normal.” We want our coffee shops, happy hours, and extracurricular activities back (all good things, in general). We were mostly satisfied with our lives, and we want the things we are missing. We think, I will never again take for granted a trip to the store, a meetup with friends, or a soccer game. I also see a lot of talk from Catholics about wanting the sacraments back again (understandably, as do I).
We think, I will never take the sacraments, Mass or the Eucharist for granted again!
But I’m not so sure about that. I can definitely foresee a time in the future when I order the fries instead of a side salad. And sadly, I can foresee a time when I could take Mass for granted – when I run late on Sunday and don’t take the time to recollect myself beforehand, or when I’m so distracted that I don’t focus on the miracle happening in front of me during consecration.
We are such weak creatures in reality. Once we are out of a difficult period, a time of suffering, a period of trouble, we instinctively want everything to go back to the way it was. We go back to our old ways, and we forget the lessons we learned during the dark time.
Though “the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41, Mk 14:38).
I’ve been thinking about the Gospel reading from this past Tuesday of the Easter Octave, John 20, when Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene at the tomb.
She is weeping over the loss of her beloved Jesus, and he comes to her and comforts her by calling her name. Yet, immediately Jesus says to her: “Stop holding on to me…But go to my brothers and tell them [you’ve seen me].”
Wait, what? Jesus just appeared to Magdalene first of all his followers, comforting her in her sorrow. You could imagine there being a joyous reunion here, some time spent together. But just as quickly Jesus pulls himself away from her. Why? Why the seeming disparity between these two actions?
But Jesus’ actions here are not really discordant. Both are mercy and love in action, I realized.
First He comes to Mary in her suffering, the very definition of mercy. “Woman, why are you weeping?” He gently makes her aware of His presence with the gentle calling of her name that consoles and reassures.
Then He tells her to “stop holding on to me.” Magdalene is so attached to Jesus in His humanity that her sorrow has completely overwhelmed her, and she is frantic at the loss of His person. She doesn’t want to let go of the way things were. She was holding on to this relationship in such a way as that it couldn’t get any better. Yet, He wanted to give her so much more than their earthly relationship could offer and create a much deeper relationship with Him.
She is now enlisted by Jesus as the “Apostle to the Apostles,” the one who was first witness to the Resurrection, who bears the news to all the others.
Her life, which could have been so ordinary, in this action is taken to heights unimaginable to her previously. But in order to fulfill this role, she had to “stop holding on” to the way she wanted it. She must detach herself from her sense of “normal” and the way things used to be.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”
John 12:24
It meant letting go of the comfort of His human presence and her expectations for their relationship. She would have to learn a new way of relationship with her Savior, one in which He wasn’t with her bodily but in Spirit.
“But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
John 16:7
And even though that meant loss, suffering, grief, and loneliness (at first), it meant greater Love and purpose in her life. It meant being able to participate in issuing His love into the world. It meant being His cooperator in the salvation of others.
What a mercy of Jesus to insist that she let go! He asks her to move forward, let go, for her greater good and the greater good of humanity!
In those words “stop holding on”, He is essentially saying, “Trust me. You don’t understand what I have planned – for you and the world. Abandon yourself to my loving Providence. Trust me and let go.”
The same is true for each of us. Jesus offers each of us so much more than we can comprehend, but we need to “stop holding on” to the way things were!
This quarantine is definitely a desolate experience, much as Magdalene experienced the three days when Jesus was in the tomb. This time is hard for us! Really, really hard! We are in need of some consolation, and we just want things back to “normal.”
Some of you may be experiencing incredible pain, loss and death of a loved one. Some of you might be pouring yourself out to the point of exhaustion for your fellow humans. Others may be sacrificing the safety of your family in order to serve others.
If this is your situation, some of what I write here is not yet for you. You need the moment when Jesus calls to you, as He does Magdalene, and He comforts you. Stay in that moment. It is not yet time for you to think about letting go. And I want you to know that we are praying for you.
However, there are many of us who are mercifully blessed to be quite insulated in our safe homes right now.
We too are experiencing hardships. Far be it for me to minimize the very real loneliness, boredom, frustration, unease, and restlessness that many of us are feeling. Just because someone has it worse than us doesn’t mean what we are feeling doesn’t matter. It’s just a different kind of hardship.
Thankfully, this kind of hardship can be used for our growth. Our emotions can be good indicators to us about what we need to focus on. This pandemic can be a time when we come to realize what we need to detach from in order to live more fully.
If we can learn anything from Magdalene here, it is that our limited, human expectations of how things should be is not the same as God’s will and desires for our lives. Rather than holding on to our ideas, we can use this time to work on living our life as He wants it to be.
In fact this is something that we regularly pray for to Our Father: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
We all long for heaven because it is perfect and all good and full of God’s presence and love. The inhabitants of heaven live solely to love and serve God in a perfected way. This side of the veil we cannot reach perfection, but we must do better than we have been doing.
It seems as if we are so far from God’s will and vision for this life. Life on earth is not being lived as it is in heaven, and His will isn’t being lived out fully in our “normal” lives.
We shouldn’t want to go back to normal. We should desire to move on to something better.
This is an opportunity, albeit a frustrating and painful opportunity, but excellence rarely comes from doing the same old things. Change is very hard. Letting go is extremely difficult. Detaching ourselves from the way we see things is near impossible.
Holiness requires work and pain and suffering. And I’m reminded of something a friend tells her children, “We can do hard things.”
During this time, when you realize you are experiencing uncomfortable emotions, I invite you to turn to prayer, as I will also be doing. Some things that have come to my mind that are worth praying about:
What is normal? What is it that we want so badly to get back to? What emotions are we experiencing? Restless or bored? Tired of the quiet and downtime? Why is this bothering us? Is there an emptiness that we’re not willing to deal with?
Do we desire to go back to normal to fill the days with activity? Are we missing some purpose in life and just filling time? Does the inactivity and lack of busyness mean we might have to deal with deeper emotions?
Are we missing friends, family and co-workers? That’s only natural, but could it be that we might be a little too attached to those people? Maybe we rely on a particular relationship for our comfort, rather than turning towards God? Being in close quarters with others for a long time, are we realizing how poorly we behave toward them? Are we seeing all of our imperfections and weaknesses?
Ask the Holy Spirit to be with you and guide you as you pray about your experience.
Ask Him to show you where you need to “stop holding on.”
Ask for the grace to more perfectly conform your will to the Father’s will for your life.
Pay attention to Jesus calling your name, as He did with Mary, and then listen to what He’s asking of you.
He is calling us to examine our lives, to see where it is lacking in Love, to pay attention to the ways in which we are NOT living His will on earth. He’s doing this in order that we might draw closer to Him as we’ve never believed possible.
I can imagine Him saying to us right now, “Trust me. You don’t understand what I have planned – for you and the world. Abandon yourself to my loving Providence. Trust me and let go.”
That plan might be bigger than never taking salad for granted again! And just maybe its bigger than never taking the sacraments for granted again. Maybe it’s about taking our relationship with Him to unimaginable heights that we never could have imagined unless we were forced to “stop holding on.”
But one thing we know for certain is that we can trust that God’s plan is good!
