Noli me tangere - do not touch me
Although Mary Magdalene sees the external signs of Jesus 'Resurrection (the empty tomb and the presence of angels), she cannot sense the mystery of Jesus' rising from the dead. Locked in her sorrow for Christ's death, she seeks consolation in the presence of his dead body. But the last consolation was taken from her as well. For when she comes to the tomb, she finds it empty. The empty tomb and in it the strange presence of two angels covered in white are unable to speak to her. The angels ask her: Why are you crying? She said, My Lord has been taken away, and I do not know where he is laid. The fact of Jesus 'death is so firmly imprinted in the memory of Mary Magdalene that the signs of Jesus' Resurrection cannot lead her to a different way of thinking and searching.
Forgetting the words of Jesus, who had foretold his Resurrection many times, she stopped on herself, on her ideas and expectations of what she wanted to experience during her stay at the tomb. Since she was unable to read the signs of the Resurrection, Jesus himself comes to her. But her blindness with sadness and the quest to find the dead body of Jesus was so great that she was unable to recognize Him alive. Christ asked questions: Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for? He wants to help her break away from her concentration on a dead body and lead her to look for the Person of Jesus. Mary Magdalene's sorrow and pain resulted not because of the disappearance of the body, but because of Jesus' death. With the presence of Christ's dead body, she wants to soothe her pain and sorrow.
Experiencing suffering also causes that Mary Magdalene loses a sense of reality: Thinking that it is the gardener, she said to him: Lord, if you moved him, tell me where you put him and I will take him. It might seem strange for the gardener to take the body of a dead man from the garden, and also to bring it back to the grave by a weak woman.
If, in our experience of faith, despite our sometimes even great spiritual efforts, we remain tearful and sad, complaining primarily about ourselves or other people it is because of our stopping and focusing on what we expect from ourselves or from God. These are some kind of religious fixations. In this attitude, we plan for ourselves how our meeting with Jesus should proceed, what feelings we should then experience, and how God should solve our problems. We remain in tears because our spiritual wishes are not being fulfilled, which are not inner desires received from God, but merely expressions of our human needs. And although God sometimes gives us very clear signs, like Mary Magdalene, religious fixations do not allow us to read them well.
Just say one word
Mary Magdalene is unable to recognize Jesus just by looking at Him. Jesus' initiative was therefore necessary. One word from him: Mary, is enough to open her eyes and discover the Risen One in the gardener. One word of Jesus shook Mary from her grief.
One word of Christ can wake us up, heal us, save us. One word can open our eyes, give us new life. This one word reveals the power of the One who speaks it. A Roman centurion once professed faith in the power of one word of Jesus: Say the word only, and my servant will be healed (cf. Mt 8: 8). Assuming this faith in the power of Jesus' words, we repeat in every Holy Mass a paraphrase of the centurion's words: Say the word only, and my soul will be healed. In this prayer, we express our faith in the power of Jesus' word. Let us ask for one word of His, thanks to which we could see and believe in His Resurrection, thanks to which we could also experience deep inner joy and peace.
One word from Jesus: Mary, opened her eyes and she saw the Lord immediately. Pulled out of her concentration on the dead body of Jesus, she could finally see the living Lord. From being blinded by pain and sorrow, she is led to experience the Risen Jesus. To one word of Jesus, Mary also replies with one word, Rabbuni. With this one word, she expresses her faith that the One she saw and heard before her death on the cross is the one, she now sees and to whom she now pays homage. With just one word, she humbly acknowledges that the experience of the Resurrection is a grace offered to her.
Just as Jesus only needs one word to be fully revealed to us, so too can one word be enough for us to confess our faith, give him glory, express our regret, express all our prayers. We often try to replace lack of faith with a multitude of words. But Christ himself warns us against this prayer: In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (cf. Mt 6: 7-8). In a word, we can tell God that we want to receive everything that is well known to Him as our need and our desire. Our one word can have great power because of the faith hidden in it.
The one word said to Mary is her own name. There is power in the name. By uttering the name, God calls man to life. Jesus, by uttering Mary's name, calls her to a new life, to a new existence. Let us pray that Jesus, the Risen One, may also pronounce our names over us, so that he may call us to a new life, to a new existence. The Good Shepherd calls his sheep by name and leads them out, he stands at their head, and they follow him (cf. Jn 10: 3–4). Let us express in this contemplation the desire to belong to Jesus' flock, thanks to which Jesus will be able - calling us by name - to call us again and again to a new life, to a new vision of Him and our reality.
Let us also repay Christ with one word. Let us pronounce his name reverently and lovingly: JESUS. Let us be aware that we can say His name in faith only with the help of His Spirit. As our interior grows, it is one word, the name of Jesus may become the most important - even the only - content of our prayer. The name of Jesus can fill our heart completely. Through the name of Jesus, we establish a relationship not only with the Son, but also with His Father. For whoever has a relationship with the Son also has a relationship with the Father, because the Son and the Father are one. To our prayer: Lord, only say the word, and my soul will be healed, Christ could also answer us: You also say only one word with faith, my name – JESUS - and your soul will be saved.
The new presence of the Risen Jesus
When Mary said to Jesus: Rabbuni, Jesus answered her, Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. The essence of Jesus' mission, the essence of the mystery of the Incarnation, is the descent from the Father and return to him: I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father (cf. Jn 16:28). The ultimate fulfillment of the mission is therefore not so much the Resurrection, but rather its primary purpose: returning to the Father to be seated at his right hand. Leaving the world and sitting at the right hand of the Father, he remains at the same time forever with his disciples: I am going away and I will come back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father (cf. Jn 14:28). Departure to the Father is a necessity not only for Jesus himself, but also for His disciples. From this necessity results mutual greater good, greater joy.
The meeting of Jesus with Mary Magdalene creates a kind of transition between the former presence of Jesus, in a physical and visible way, and the new presence. Mary Magdalene and all of Jesus' disciples will have to learn to look for Jesus in a new way, in a new form. The new presence is realized through the faith of the whole Church community. Mary Magdalene, like all of Jesus' disciples after the Resurrection, finds herself at some turning point, at a transition point. Only the Ascension of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit will create a new community - the Church.
But before that happens, all the disciples, like Mary Magdalene, will be learning faith in the Risen Jesus. It is impossible to stop the time; Jesus cannot be kept like in the past. The hour of Jesus, the time of his earthly life is over, belongs to history. The physical, earthly presence of Jesus became part of human history at the time of his death. After his Resurrection, Jesus transcends history, transcends time, transcends space. From then on, Jesus becomes the lord of history, the lord of time, the lord of space. Hence, he cannot be arrested or imprisoned by time and history. After the Resurrection, Jesus says of himself that he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, he is who is, who was and who is to come, he is the Almighty (cf. Rev 1: 8). An attempt to keep the historical Jesus becomes impossible, just as it proved impossible for Mary Magdalene to find His dead body. As there is no longer a dead body, because Jesus is risen, so also there is no more historical Jesus, because he ascended to the Father and is seated at his right hand. Seeking a historical Jesus is therefore looking for illusions, it is failing to meet Jesus who lives forever at the right hand of the Father.
And although we cannot go back to the past, we need to establish a close bond with the past and history. The Risen Jesus is the same Master of Nazareth to whom Mary Magdalene and the other disciples accompanied him during his journeys through Galilee and Judea. While there is a profound difference between the two figures of Jesus, the identity of the Person remains. In the Risen Jesus, the absolute newness of God is revealed, which the world has not yet known. In order to discover, see and live the new reality of the Risen Jesus, a new perspective is needed; a new look cleansed from personal attachments and human expectations. In the new relationship with Jesus, one must depend entirely on him, just as he himself has entrusted himself to the will of his Father.
Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. With these words, Jesus calls Mary Magdalene to break away from his old, past presence; that she would give up attachment to her human ideas, images and expectations. Jesus calls her to openness and to believe in his new presence. The new presence is just as real as His physical presence before death. Jesus teaches Mary to discover Him in a new way, to live Him in a supernatural way.
When we consider the life of Jesus too materially, too externally and too emotionally, then we spontaneously feel some regret that we did not have the opportunity to meet the historical Jesus in a physical way, as his Mother Mary, the Apostles and other disciples met him, including the women. Such human desires and all the reasoning associated with them, while respectable and understandable, is completely false.
It reveals the stopping of faith only on the surface of our emotions. It also reveals the superficiality of our experience of the Risen Jesus.
Our relationship with Jesus’ today is real, true and deep. We are not harmed in anyway; we are not in a worse situation than those who could meet the historical Jesus. We do not find it harder to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, our Savior. On the contrary. With the testimony of two thousand years before us, we, in a sense, perhaps is even easier. We rely not only on our personal experiences of Jesus, but also on the experiences of millions of his followers who sacrificed everything for him, often also their lives. Their faith makes us wonder, stimulates, encourages and opens us up.
In this contemplation, let us give glory to the Risen Jesus. Let us thank him for his new presence. Thanks to this, he stays with us until the end of the world (cf. Mt 28:20). He remains present for us too; he remains present for me too. He reveals to us how He revealed Himself to His Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, the Apostles, the disciples going to Emmaus and many others. Let us also thank Jesus for the faith of all His followers, thanks to which this faith has reached our day. Our faith is a continuation, it is an extension of their faith. At the same time, let us pray that we too may pass our faith in the Risen Jesus to those who will come after us. Jesus also invites us, as he invited Mary of Magdala: Go to my brothers and say to them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God. Mary obediently went to tell the disciples: I have seen the Lord and he told me this.
At the end, let us give glory to Jesus, who is seated at the right hand of the Father, expressing our faith in his new, ever-living presence among us. Visibly absent, however, Jesus accompanies us every day until the end of the world. Let us ask that His new presence become the source of a new view on our lives and our entire human reality. Let us ask that we may experience interiorly that as the Risen One He is the Beginning and the End, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is and Who was and Who is to come. (cf. Rev 1:8)
Until Tomorrow
fr. george
Novena to The Divine Mercy - Fifth Day:
Today bring to Me THE SOULS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SEPARATED THEMSELVES FROM MY CHURCH, and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy. During My bitter Passion they tore at My Body and Heart, that is, My Church. As they return to unity with the Church, My wounds heal and in this way they alleviate My Passion.
Most Merciful Jesus, Goodness Itself, You do not refuse light to those who seek it of You. Receive into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Church. Draw them by Your light into the unity of the Church, and do not let them escape from the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart; but bring it about that they, too, come to glorify the generosity of Your mercy.
Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Son's Church, who have squandered Your blessings and misused Your graces by obstinately persisting in their errors. Do not look upon their errors, but upon the love of Your own Son and upon His bitter Passion, which He underwent for their sake, since they, too, are enclosed in His Most Compassionate Heart. Bring it about that they also may glorify Your great mercy for endless ages. Amen.
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet