Mary stood weeping outside the tomb; and as she wept, she bent down to look inside. She saw two angels in
white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, and the other at the feet. They said, “Woman,
why are you weeping?” She answered, “Because they have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have put him.”
As she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize him. Jesus said to her,
“Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and answered him, “Sir,
if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and take him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned, and said to him, “Rabboni!”—which means Master. Jesus said to her, “Do not
touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them: I am ascending to
my Father, who is your Father, to my God, who is your God.”
So Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord, and this is what he said to me.”
Reflection:
Some two decades ago, in the US Catholic, I read an interview of a woman who cared for his paralyzed husband for some
three decades until he died, while also bringing up their children as the single active head of the family. Couldn’t she have
placed the husband in a care home, got married again, and lived a normal life? Her answer went something like this: “It was
his person that I married, not his body alone.”
The exchange between Mary Magdalene and Jesus points to such essence of love. Mary loved Jesus with every fiber of
her being. Yet, when she met him in plain sight at the tomb, she did not recognize him. But, the moment he called her from
the depth of his soul –“Mary” – she knew him instantly. It wasn’t the external Jesus she loved, but the very person. It was when
he called her by name that she recognized his body. Isn’t this what chastity is all about, be it in married life or in consecrated life?
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