Seen, Loved, Wanted and Sent

Is there a sound more beautiful than to hear your own name called out by the one you love? By one who loves you? To know in that moment that you are loved, connected, tethered, seen? 

I think of all the moments where I have wandered, crying and lost, looking for where they have put my Lord. Because far too often, it has felt in the midst of ministry, in the midst of the horrors and sufferings that keep happening throughout the world, in the midst of figuring out how to be a woman in the Catholic church, that there is some great trick being played on me. Why does it have to be so hard? This Jesus I keep following, who I keep coming back to, also sometimes seems just so hard to find. So many things get in the way, the hurdles feel too high, I get absolutely lost in it all. Sometimes figuring out how to follow and find Jesus in at all can be too much. 

And then, I realize the gardener - the person I dislike, the person I ignored, the person I gave no thought to, the person I hadn’t listened closely enough to, the person I haven’t had a moment to catch up with, the person I am so close to that I don’t see them as clearly as I should - turns out to be the voice of Jesus. And then I find myself called by name, again. I find myself in that moment of remembering that I am seen, I am loved, I am wanted, I am missioned and I am sent. 

As I pray with Mary Magdalene on this day we celebrate and remember her, I am praying with her call, her name, her intimate moment of being sent. We are not sent randomly. We are not left to figure it all out on our own. Even when we are unsure of where to turn and cannot figure out what has happened to the God we love and continue to seek without ceasing, we are being called. However lost we may be, Jesus will always be waiting for us and will always be calling us by name. Mary reminds us that we have a call, we have a mission, and that in the midst of all the chaos that may happen around us, we are seen, loved and wanted.

Today's Readings for the Feast of Mary Magdalene

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Ellen Romer Niemiec is a writer, spiritual director, retreat leader, advocate of synodality, and higher education administrator who finds great joy gathering others around a table. She accompanies students at Catholic Theological Union where she is also earning her Doctor of Ministry in Spirituality. She also earned her Master of Divinity and Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Formation from Boston College. She lives in Chicago with her spouse and three children.