Every year the liturgical calendar offers unexpected encounters. The Orthodox Church of Jerusalem commemorates Saint Mary Magdalene (Julian cal.), the first witness of the Resurrection and the Apostle to the Apostles. In the Roman Catholic Church, on that same day, one recalls Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, the humble parish priest whose life transformed an obscure French village into a place of pilgrimage. They are separated by nearly eighteen centuries, by language, culture and ecclesial tradition. Yet they belong to the same pilgrimage: the search for the living God and the patient discovery that, before we seek Him, He has already sought us.

Only a few days earlier, we commemorated the holy Prophet Elijah. For readers in Israel, this remembrance is never merely another liturgical anniversary. Elijah belongs to the living landscape of this land. He crossed its valleys and mountains, confronted kings, denounced injustice, defended the Covenant, and finally withdrew into solitude, where he expected once more to encounter the Lord.

The biblical account on Mount Horeb is astonishing. Elijah does not discover God in the violent wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. He recognizes Him only in what the Scriptures call the kol demamah daqqah/קול דממה דקה, “the still, small voice.” Divine revelation does not overwhelm; it invites. It does not compel; it calls.

This thread continues throughout the Gospel according to Saint John. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb before dawn. Like Elijah on Horeb, she is searching. She sees the empty tomb,  the angels. She even sees Jesus Himself, yet she does not recognize Him. The eyes alone are not enough. Something deeper is required than physical sight.

Recognition comes only when Jesus pronounces a single word:

In that instant everything changes. She no longer stands before an anonymous gardener but before the risen Lord. Faith is born not from a demonstration but from a relationship. God does not begin by explaining Himself; He calls each person by name.

Many centuries later, the Curé d’Ars would express the same mystery with extraordinary simplicity. Asked what he did while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, he answered in the old French of his native countryside:

Je L’avise, et Il m’avise — (I behold Him, and He beholds me; איך באַטראַכט אים, ער באַטראַכט מיך — Ikh batrakht im, er batrakht mikh – Yiddish is very close to the phrase).

No translation fully exhausts those few words. The old French aviser means more than simply “to look.” It suggests attentive presence, mutual awareness and dialogue.

This insight runs like a thread through the Scriptures. Elijah listens. Mary........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)