Mary goes to the tomb in the early hours to anoint jesus buy his body isn’t in the tomb. She encounters a couple of angels and a man she thinks is a gardener…but He is Jesus, RISEN. It really and truly IS Jesus but somehow His Body has been transformed and she can’t quite place Him. Mary only recognizes Jesus when He calls her by name, “Mary!”

Mary us overwhelmed with Joy!! And so are we. Jesus IS Risen in each other and in the Church. He calls each one of us by name, to leave our suffocating tombs of fear and isolation and into a garden of delight! How fitting Mary mistakes Jesus for a gardener, for it all started in a garden named Eden. Jesus shed tears of blood  in a garden called Gethsemene, where He accepted the will  of the Father to embrace the Cross. 

We are all called to be gardeners, planting seeds of God’s love and presence. May our “garden” sprout plants of new life and flowers of virtue. Easter is a never-ending transformation and restoration of the world into a garden of Joy. May YOU be mistaken for a gardener, even if you don’t have a green thumb !!!

Easter Peace. Fr. Frank