Recognition is a graced moment. I am referring here not to the bestowal of an award or the acknowledgement of efforts. No, recognition, as we encounter it in the Gospels after the Resurrection, is a moment of dynamic realization by the disciples that the Lord stands before them. Mary Magdalene has this experience (John 20:16). Thomas comes to this moment (John 20:28). So does John the Beloved (John 21:7). There are many others. I would suggest that there is more to this recognition than merely the surprise of seeing someone whom they did not expect. We have all had that experience, and the emotional exhilaration of it eventually passes. We settle down and grow accustomed.
However, in the post-Resurrection encounters we truly get the sense that those who recognize the Lord are filled with awe. Such is the reaction of John the Beloved. He simply says to Peter, “It is the Lord” (John 21:7). Awe, I am afraid, is an “endangered species” today. When is the last time you or anyone you know was struck with awe? But this is what happens in the Gospels. Would that we could recapture it! St. Paul knew it, when he wrote the following: “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and [the] sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7-11). Christ is risen! Hallelujah!