This poem reflects Mary’s experience of going to the tomb as it is portrayed in two resurrection stories in John’s gospel (John 20:1-10 and John 20:11-18).  The first passage is proclaimed in the Sunday Readings this Easter Sunday April 4, 2021.  
 
Resurrection in ONE hundred WORDs
[One]
Way beyond caring
she
 
Way beyond a word of consolation
she
 
Way beyond tears
she
 
looked and looked and looked.
 
[Two]
He
had touched her
 
He
had spoken to her
 
He
had opened her
 
heart.
 
[Three]
Then came
 
the whip
the spikes
the cry
 
the blood, the body broken beyond belief,
the finality,
 
and death.
 
[Four]
Still
the sun rose as it does.
 
Still
the flowers bloomed, fawns foundered,
the waves, consulting no one, lapped the shore
 
and time
it came
 
that she must to His tomb.
 
Then
 
[Five]
Mary,
was all He said,
and wonderingly the stone that had displaced her heart
 
rolled away.
 
By Peter Oliver
 
Reflection
Amazing!  Jesus awakens Mary’s faith with a single word, her name.  How often are we buried in the tombs of past injustice and grief?  We peer in the tombs of broken family relationships and we wonder where is Jesus? 
 
At times like this, Jesus who is incredibly pleased to find us searching, speaks our name and the stones that displace our hearts rolls away.
 
This poem reflects Mary’s experience of going to the tomb as it is portrayed in two resurrection stories in John’s gospel (John 20:1-10 and John 20:11-18).  The first passage is proclaimed in the Sunday Readings this Easter Sunday.

Photo Attribution Brandon Vázquez