From Jerusalem to Galilee and Overseas

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:

“Mary.”

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 hears. The Curé remains before the Eucharistic Messiah. Three witnesses, three centuries, three different vocations, yet one and the same movement of grace. Before human beings pronounce the name of God, God has already pronounced theirs.

Mary Magdalene occupies a unique place in the Gospel. Christian tradition has often surrounded her with legends, devotions and misunderstandings, yet the Evangelists present her with remarkable sobriety. She is neither introduced as a scholar nor as a public preacher, nor as one seeking authority.

She follows Christ to Golgotha when many have fled. She witnesses His burial. Before sunrise on the first day of the week, she returns to the tomb.

Mary Magdelena stands outside the tomb weeping. Her tears are not merely signs of grief. They reveal that love has refused to surrender. Even when she mistakes the risen Christ for the gardener, she does not abandon her search. She asks only one question: where is the One whom she loves?

Then comes one of the shortest and deepest dialogues in the New Testament.

“Mary.”

“Rabbouni.”

Nothing more is needed. One name, spoken by the Lord, opens a new creation. Jesus does not allow Mary Magdalene to remain enclosed within the joy of this encounter. “Go to My brethren…” The first witness immediately becomes the first messenger, a woman who “gives birth to faith”. Mary Magdalene became known in Christian tradition as the Apostle to the Apostles because she carried to them the first proclamation of the Resurrection.

This is why Mary Magdalene has remained such a central figure in both East and West. In the Orthodox Church she is honored as Equal to the Apostles (Isapostolos/ἰσαπόστολος),  because she became the first herald of Pascha/resurrection of the Lord. The empty tomb is not merely an historical event. The first human voice entrusted with proclaiming is that of a woman who remained faithful when hope appeared to have vanished. It is much more significant than her presupposed status toward Jesus and the Early Church.

If Mary Magdalene teaches us how to recognize the voice of the risen Christ, Saint Jean-Marie Vianney teaches us how to remain in His presence. Nothing in his early life suggested that he would become one of the most beloved parish priests in the history of the Church. He struggled with his studies, lived through the upheavals of post-Revolutionary France, and was entrusted with a tiny village that many considered of little importance. Providence, however, often chooses places and people that history scarcely notices.

The Curé often spoke with astonishing simplicity. His words were those of a parish priest, yet they reached extraordinary theological depth. Among them stands another striking expression: un cœur liquide—a “liquid heart.” The phrase sounds unusual to modern ears, but it describes a heart softened by grace until it becomes capable of receiving, forgiving, weeping and rejoicing.

His understanding of the Eucharist sprang from the same contemplative vision. He once remarked that if a priest truly understood what takes place during the Divine Liturgy – or, in the Latin tradition, the Holy Mass – he would die, not from fear but from the overwhelming greatness of the mystery entrusted to human hands. Such words express amazement before the divine condescension by which ordinary bread and wine become the sacramental presence of Christ.

Those who knew him often observed another remarkable gift. He seemed able instinctively to distinguish ordinary bread from the consecrated Eucharistic Gifts. Whether one regards this as a particular charism or as the fruit of profound contemplation is ultimately secondary. What matters is that faith had educated his perception. He no longer looked only with the physical eyes. His whole being had learned to recognise the holy.

For an Orthodox reader, such experiences are not foreign. They belong to the spiritual tradition of the undivided Church and continued to flourish in East and West alike.

History often remembers rulers, generals and celebrated intellectuals. The Church remembers, above all, those whose lives became transparent to God and the Messiah.

What, then, do Elijah, Mary Magdalene and the Curé d’Ars have to say to us today? Ours is an age of astonishing scientific achievements, artificial intelligence, instant communication and limitless information. Never has humanity exchanged so many words. Yet never has attentive listening seemed more fragile. We know how to react immediately, but we often struggle to contemplate. We communicate constantly, yet genuine encounter remains rare.

Elijah teaches us to listen before speaking. Mary Magdalene teaches us to remain faithful before understanding. The Curé d’Ars teaches us to contemplate before acting. None of them sought success as the modern world understands it. They only sought to remain faithful to the presence of God.

During these same summer days, we have also commemorated Saint Seraphim of Sarov, one of the most beloved saints of the Christian East. His Paschal greeting has echoed through generations:

“Christos is Risen, my joy!”
(Христос воскресе, радость моя!)

How close those words are to the witness of the Curé d’Ars. One lived in the forests of Russia, the other in the fields of rural France. They belonged to different ecclesial traditions and expressed their faith through different theological vocabularies. Yet both welcomed innumerable pilgrims. Both radiated gentleness. Both understood repentance not as humiliation but as the restoration of joy.

For me, this is not an argument for ignoring the real differences that history has created between Judaism, and inside the many Church jurisdictions. Genuine dialogue is never built upon vague religious agreement. It grows through truthfulness, patience and mutual respect. Father Kurt Hruby, of blessed memory, often reminded us that it may take centuries to heal centuries of ignorance and estrangement. Cardinal Hans Urs von Bathasar described how rarely and only for short periods of time Jews and Christians could find a way to dialogue in depth.

This is why I have never believed in spectacular reconciliation. I was born into a Jewish family entirely destroyed during the Shoah, or, as Yiddish more profoundly expresses it, the Churban/חורבן – the destruction. My parents told me: “You belong to the generation that has the task of reconciliation.” Since then, my life has unfolded among languages, traditions and peoples. Whether working with Hebrew in the Orthodox Churches, with Yiddish and Christianity, or with dialogue between Jews and Christians.

I often say, half smiling yet entirely seriously, that I work “for eternal times.” The deepest works of Providence frequently become visible only long after those who began them have departed. Elijah did not witness the entire fulfilment of his mission. Mary Magdalene proclaimed the Resurrection without seeing the centuries that would follow. The Curé d’Ars never imagined that pilgrims would still speak of him generations after his repose. Saint Seraphim greeted each visitor with the joy of Pascha without asking how history would judge him.

The Curé d’Ars spoke of un cœur liquide, a heart softened until it could flow towards others. In my native Yiddish there is another expression that approaches the same mystery:

זיי אַ מענטש – zay a mentsh.

The phrase is often translated, “Be a good person.” It means much more. Be deeply human. Be trustworthy. Be compassionate. Listen before judging. Think before speaking. Remain capable of tenderness without surrendering truth. Holiness never abolishes our humanity; it transfigures it.

Perhaps this is the quiet lesson shared by Elijah, Mary Magdalene, the Curé d’Ars and Saint Seraphim. God continues to reveal Himself much as He always has: through faithful hearts; through attentive silence; through love and nearness.

In the end, faith may be simpler than we often imagine. It begins by listening to the still, small voice. It matures by remaining faithful when darkness seems to prevail. It blossoms when the human heart becomes transparent enough for others to glimpse the divine Presence.