Holy Joys of God's Returning.
In the first post-resurrection encounter, Jesus appears to Mary of Magdala in the garden who does not recognize Him until, hearing Him speak the name, Mary, her eyes are opened and she turns to Him. Look at the beautiful space between their outstretched hands. Reminiscent of Michaelangelo's painting of the Creation of Adam in the Garden of Eden, the space is filled with Life and Love. The work of our return to Life begins when, like the Penitent, each of us who has recognized the Risen Lord as our personal Savior turns to Him and receives Eternal Life through the action of the Holy Spirit. Sent by the Father into the disorder of our lives, He begins the work of our sanctification and, through us, the restoration of paradise. Through the metaphor of the garden, we can picture the Divine Gardener as He asks us to wait in expectation for the action of the Spirit whose work and whose joy it is to restore within the seeming isolation and disorder of the human condition, the true image of the Triune God. By divine grace, it is here in the heart that we are being healed, put into right relationship with God and with one another. As the Penitent runs to tell the others, so we bring Christ to one another and to the whole of creation.
From the small album:
A Garden Enclosed
