He Calls You By Name
The Easter gospel tells of a powerful encounter after the Resurrection. I read the gentle question that Jesus asks:
“Woman, why are you weeping?”
“Oh, Jesus,” I answer, “How long do you have?”
I am weeping because I am scared. Because I miss my baby. Because my daughter is rejecting me. Because people are saying mean things about me. Because my marriage and family don’t look at all like I thought they would.
Why am I weeping?
Because my child died.
Why am I weeping?
Because I love you desperately but fail you. Because a father is lost and lashing out at me. Because my kids use drugs. Because I don’t have the relationship with my children I long for. Because I fear life is passing me by. Because I don’t think I will ever feel better.
My sorrow presses against my heart. But then, I keep reading.
Jesus asks, “Woman, why are you weeping?” but then he calls her by name. The woman turns and looks at Jesus when he calls her by name.
I am moved by that single word, her name: Mary. His voice thrills her heart and she sees now what she could not see before. Rabboni, she replies. My master, my teacher, my Lord.
This encounter with Christ is for all of us, especially in grief. Mary stands on the brink of her darkest hour, the desolation not just of Jesus’ death but the loss of his body, the loss of her purpose and her hope. It is in her lowest point that He comes and speaks her name and she turns to him.
Heart reaches heart.
I imagine Mary weeping anew as she recognizes her Lord and her God. Tears of sorrow are now tears of joy and she finds new life as she races to fulfill her mission of announcing the Resurrection to the apostles.
Jesus calls each one of us by name, not just in baptism, but in the sorrows and disappointments of life. When we weep, he speaks the truth of our identity as beloved daughters and sons. He invites us to see ourselves and our circumstances with his eyes and his heart. He draws us into an intimate relationship with him.
When Jesus looks deeply into our eyes and speaks our name, our tears of sorrow can become tears of joy.
When Christ calls me by name, my fear is silenced. When I turn to him in my tears, he receives me again and again. He speaks my name and I am saved. I am seen. I am sent. I can never be lost when Jesus speaks my name and looks deeply into my eyes. I am only lost if I choose to be lost.
Jesus never rejects us. He knows the reasons why we weep, even when we don’t. He calms our tears. He soothes them. He heals our hearts. But we need to do our part. Mary could have stayed hidden away in her home like the apostles, but in faith she wanted to be as close to Jesus as possible, even in death.
Am I willing to sacrifice to meet Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament? In the sacred scriptures? In the silence of my heart? Do I make space and time to hear his voice?
Or perhaps I hear him speak my name, but I am attached to my tears, attached to my wounds, attached to my way of seeing the world, attached to the way I thought my life should go.
Am I willing to stop weeping, hear him say my name, and let it change me?
This woman, Mary, who was silent when she was caught in adultery, who was silent when she knelt at Christ’s feet and broke open the alabaster jar – she has a voice now. When He speaks her name, she proclaims an unbelievable and amazing truth: I have seen the Lord!
My prayer for each of us this Easter season is that we draw close enough to Jesus to hear him say our name. May our hearts be stirred through our encounter with the risen Lord and may we too race to fulfill the mission Jesus speaks into our lives, even in sorrow, even in death.
*****
On January 15, 2021, I had been struggling with discouragement all week. There were many hard situations in my family and the Lord felt so far away. I came to Jesus in adoration late that night and gave him my whole heart. I felt very small and perhaps a little forgotten. I remembered hearing someone say that God holds a special name for each of us. The Lord is the lover of our souls and lovers often have special names for each other, endearments known only to the two of them. My friend said to ask God in prayer to reveal the special name he had for me.
I prayed for the grace to know who I was to the Lord. How did he see me? Did He really hold me in the palm of his hand? I prayed intensely. I waited expectantly to receive God’s answer, but all I heard was the silence of the chapel in the dark of night.
I returned home at the end of my hour and went to sleep disappointed. In the early hours of morning, I woke suddenly from a vivid dream, a firm and clear voice in my head: Elia. I sat up in bed with the echo of the name in my ears. Disoriented, I grabbed my phone from my nightstand and googled “Elia”. Immediately a site popped up:
Elia – A Hebrew name meaning, “God answered.”
Oh, my heart.
God answered my prayer. God answered. He heard the cry of my heart and He calls me by name. Elia. The name felt instantly comfortable. It fit like a pair of warm slippers I had worn for years. Elia. God’s name for me. My truest deepest name. My holy name.
Over the last two years, the name Elia is slowly seeping into my heart, redeeming me like oil spreading faithfully and steadfastly into every corner of my soul. Freeing me. Healing me. Helping me to let myself be loved.
Elia is free. Elia is so loved and lives from the outrageous, glorious magnificence of this love.
Like Mary Magdalene, I am a woman who has known harm in my body. I have known betrayal and abuse. In order to appreciate the freedom I received when the Lord gave me my name, one would have to understand the agony of my prison. One would have to know the despair of abuse and how it feels to want to claw your way out of your own body.
I don’t write that to be dramatic. I write it because someone else is lost. Someone else knows the horror of wanting to carve her own body so she can be free of what is inside her.
If you know that pain, you are not alone. I see you, but more importantly, the Lord sees you. He is so close, reaching for you and wanting to heal, transform, and redeem everything you have been through. I pray that you let him love you and speak the truth of your goodness over your heart and body.
Elia is God’s hand-picked mercy for me. This name, my beloved identity in Christ, has slowly and steadily doused the flames that burned me from within. The fire has been transformed and redeemed and burns now as a fiery passion to share the hope that belongs to his call. To share the power and peace that comes from drawing near to his Sacred Heart.
When Jesus speaks my name, I am free to declare the truth. My voice is powerful because it is his voice in me. Elia.
I still weep, but more often now for joy. For beauty. In freedom.
