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51. Mary Magdalene.
But will not the
Risen One show Himself and comfort His doubting and grieving friends?
One of the women, Mary Magdalene, believed nothing other than that the
body had been carried away in the night and taken to another place, and
did not know by whom or where. Therefore she had no peace in the city.
She returned to the garden; she sat down by the deserted grave, looked
into it as if she must see him, or as if she wanted to strengthen
herself to new tears, and waited till some one came who could tell her
where the dear departed lay. Then suddenly a male figure stood behind
her back and spoke to her: "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you
looking for?" Mary thought it was the gardener. It was not the gardener.
Pious children already want to assume that it was the Risen One, and
hardly have the heart to believe it.
Mary said to the man she did not know: ‘Lord, if you have carried him
away, tell me where you have laid him so that I may fetch him.’ The
stranger addressed her by her name: ‘Mary,’ he said in a gentle voice
and revealed his face to her. It was the Risen One, and he revealed to
her that he was alive, that God had raised him from the dead. Mary cried
out with a joyful fright: ‘Rabbuni,’ that is, my Lord. That was all she
could say at first. But when she knelt down and wanted to embrace his
knees, he resisted her and said: "Don't touch me! I have not yet
ascended,‘ he said, ’to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them:
I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your
God!"
How pious Mary may have rejoiced in the Risen One, the Living One, whom
she had mourned as dead only a moment before. Weeping lasted all evening,
but joy in the morning. You have turned my mourning into a round dance.
You took off my garment of mourning and girded me with joy. Mary,
comforted and rejoicing, hurried back to the disciples and told them
that she had seen the Lord and what he had said to her.
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