Acts 10: 34a.37-43; Ps 117 (118); 1 Cor 5: 6-8; Jn 20: 1-9

Every year we begin our Lenten journey in a desert, that of temptations, and we conclude it in a garden, that of the resurrection. In fact, according to John, the lifeless body of Jesus is placed in a new sepulcher, in a garden (cf. Jn 19:41). It is therefore in this garden that Mary of Magdala first went and immediately afterwards Peter and the beloved disciple. This passage from the desert to the garden is an effective image to evoke the entire plan of salvation that reaches its fulfillment in the Passover of Jesus. If Adam’s sin had disfigured the garden of creation by making it a desert (cf. Gen 3:17 -19), the new Adam transforms the desert back into the garden wanted by the Father.
What Mary and the two disciples see is that “they have taken the Lord away from the tomb”. But what is above all to be seen – and the beloved disciple is capable of doing this to the point that he “saw and believed” – is that the way in which the cloth and the shroud are laid clearly shows that no human person could have taken that body away. and leave there, in that way, what Jesus had wrapped up for the burial. No man, only the Father could do it. Paul invites us to celebrate the feast not with old leaven, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The passage from the garden to the desert, from being old to becoming new creatures, is the work that only God can do and in fact also does in us.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey