Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Thunk... the post hole diggers went into the ground. The goal here was to simply get through the top layer of turf and expose the ground underneath. There was a grid map of the garden and technically it should be an easy straight down with the post hole diggers creating a foot square going about two feet down. The map, however, was consistently riddled with errors over the decades. Some combination of the soil moving, people forgetting to mark things, or marking things in the wrong place. The result was some written instructions on the side of the layout sheet... pray and use a trowel gently after the turf was removed. Chipping ornate boxes, tearing through a satchel or breaking a pottery urn became a growing concern after it occurred a few times by accident in places where no record of such being buried existed.

It was sacred work, menial work, and work most individuals were wary to take up. Most people don't want grave digger on their resume. There were actually a few of us at the church memorial gardens that morning. A beloved retired professor had died and all the current grave diggers were college students who knew her. We were committed to doing it right, everyone else looked the other way as we went about this work. No one casually says good morning to gardeners tending a grave.

Except Mary Magdalene, on that morning in her desperation. Which is, of course, the first way we are to understand the nature of the Resurrected Christ, a grave keeper, a tender of a memorial garden, the gardener who lives amongst the dead. There are many grand visions of the Resurrected Christ to come but this first icon is a crucial meditation for us to reflect upon. The neglected and generally unwelcome gardener tending the tombs, caring for the dead when no one else will, ensuring we can mourn amidst tended beauty. Before there is Jesus walking through walls, daring us to put our fingers in his wounds, preparing us for a final judgement where he is here to judge the quick and the dead... Jesus is the gardener, at the deaths of our loved ones, at our death, tending the garden so we can meet him in a place of tranquil beauty. Let us not forget this first icon of the resurrection.

Pax,

—Ben