My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice (Song of Songs 2:10-14a)

Do you enjoy gardening? If so, perhaps you are like me in appreciating Easter more when it falls later in the spring, aligning (in the northern hemisphere) with the start of planting, blossoming, greening, sunshine, and the lengthening of days we associate with new life. Yet this year, despite Easter’s later date, spring seems reluctant to arrive. Even this Holy Week has been unusual, marked by a funeral at each end. Perhaps we need not cling to an image of resurrection as a sudden eruption of joy, or avoid acknowledging the fear, suffering, confusion, and sorrow that precede it. For in our lives, too, moments of recognition, renewal, and healing are often mingled with loss and loneliness, and tend to occur in rather unspectacular places—in our backyard gardens, so to speak.

In fact, apart from the presence of angels, John’s resurrection account offers a scene that is painfully ordinary: a garden and a weeping woman, whose grief is both particular and universal. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb not expecting resurrection, but to anoint a dead body. She hesitated to enter the seemingly desecrated tomb, fearing grave robbers might still be present, and brought back two men. Once it became clear the body was gone, neither lingered—but Mary remained. Why? Perhaps she could not bring herself to walk away from the last place bearing the traces of the one she loved. Many of us know that hesitation: delaying the moment of parting with a loved one’s belongings, rearranging furniture, closing the door to a house once shared. Mary’s grief was amplified by her concern that Jesus’ body had been disrespected. So when she saw a man she assumed to be the gardener, she dared to hope that it was he who had moved the body, and that she might yet restore Jesus’ dignity—just as he had once restored hers, healing her of “seven demons” and returning her to life in community. But, of course, the story ends with a much deeper hope, for her and for us.

If this is a familiar story to you, did anything strike you differently as we read it today? If it’s new, is there a detail that surprised you? I used to wonder how Mary could not recognize Jesus. But with more life experience, I came to understand how much grief dulls the senses and how tears blur vision. Standing on an ancient burial ground—perhaps oriented toward the rising sun as a symbol of hope—if dawn was breaking, all Mary may have seen was a silhouette. As we, too, see many truths “as in a mirror, dimly” (1 Cor 13:12). What surprised me this year was a small detail I hadn’t noticed before: that Mary turns twice. First, from the tomb toward Jesus when he asks, “Whom are you looking for?” (Jn 20:15)—a question echoing his words to the disciples when he first met them, as well as to the soldiers in Gethsemane at the moment of his betrayal. Then, after he speaks her name, the text says she turns again. It seems redundant—if they were speaking, would she not already be facing him? Perhaps this second turning is a literary device highlighting a paradigm shift, a reorientation of the heart. In a single word—“Mary”—Jesus makes clear that she had been searching not only for a lost body but for her true self. And in finding him, she finds herself.

In Scripture, gardens are places of acquiring self-knowledge and making decisions. First, Eden where humanity “gardened” with God in innocence and arguably, insentience. Perhaps the ancients, in portraying Adam’s expulsion from Eden, imagined the emergence of human moral and intellectual maturity: a loss of ease, yes, but also the birth of agency. With agency came distortion of everything once made good—love turned to control, ambition to greed, justice to cruelty. We live out those distortions in our own Gethsemanes and Golgothas. If Eden represents intimacy and harmony, these reflect abandonment, dehumanization, betrayal, suffering. But from time to time, we step into our own resurrection gardens where tears may not yet be wiped away, but hope begins to stir. This is no longer Eden’s infancy, but consecration and commissioning. Here, the Spirit of God is a gardener, seed, and fruit all at once (Jn 12:24; 1 Cor 15:23). And as in all gardens, growth begins unseen and appears incremental.

Growth is shaped by moment-by-moment decisions: to remain in Eden’s innocence or risk walking through Gethsemane towards resurrection. In saying, “Do not cling to me” (Jn 20:17), far from rejecting Mary, Jesus releases her once again—this time not from evil or isolation, but from the impulse to hold on to what is familiar, and comforting. The reading appointed for Mary Magdalene’s feast day is from a biblical love poem: “I sought him whom my soul loves… I found him… I held him, and would not let him go” (Sg 3:4). And yet, in the gospel, she learns to let go. In finding Jesus, Mary finds herself—and as soon as she does, she leaves the garden. That movement takes courage. But leaving the garden, with Jesus still standing there, was the only way she could become apostola apostolorum, entrusted with the sacred message.

As Mary had once traveled with Jesus all across Galilee, legend holds she later traveled as far as France to preach what she understood in that burial garden. The Church’s imagination has reshaped her story many times—sometimes with reverence, sometimes with discomfort. Some said she lived her final days a hermit in a cave, just as she began, but also lifted by angels up to heaven for liturgies! Yet a sixth-century pope also conflated her with the unnamed woman of ill repute, branding both as repentant sex workers. Others added that she lived in a cave clad only in her hair. To me these embellishments reveal more about our discomfort with women entrusted with authority than about the historical Mary whom Jesus knew.

Mary might have known that her teachings and agency would be later interpreted in many ways. But in moments of courage, we don’t always feel ready or think about the consequences. Bishop Mariann Budde, who gave the benediction at the most recent U.S. presidential inauguration, had earlier written a book on courage called “How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith” (2023). In it, she observes that acts of courage—doing what we think we cannot do—often appear impulsive, but in fact are the fruit of entire lives shaped by quiet, faithful decisions. None of these look spectacular. Resurrection rarely does. It more often takes the form of a quiet conversation, a moment of stillness, a remembered phrase, a decision to stay or to go. Only later do we recognize: “this was holy.”

And yet even in those moments, we may again hear, “Do not cling.” Let go—not only of hurt and regret, but even of what was beautiful, familiar, and beloved. Not to forget these, of course, but to be open to receive what God is doing now. Like Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Bishop Budde herself, each one of us has been quietly preparing to go forth with purpose, to speak up, to love. So let us look again at the ordinary places in our lives, the people we tend to overlook, the moments we nearly missed. Perhaps the risen Christ is already there, waiting quietly in the garden, ready to speak our name.

Questions to Consider

1. What does it mean to you that the first person to witness the
resurrection and take the message to the male apostles was a woman – one who was once silenced and cast out of her community?

2. Mary didn’t recognize Jesus until he called her. What prevents us from seeing the holy in our daily lives? What “gardens” in your life might be places where resurrection is waiting to be noticed?

3. Once Jesus spoke Mary’s name, she recognized him. When have you felt truly seen or called by name in a way that awakened something sacred in you?

4. “Do not cling to me,” Jesus says. What does this moment teach us about love that holds loosely, about intimacy that empowers rather than possesses?

5. Mary’s encounter is personal, emotional, and embodied—she weeps, speaks, reaches out. What might this tell us about how we can relate to God not only with our minds, but with our whole selves—our emotions, our longing, our touch, our voice?