Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Glorious Mysteries: The Resurrection
She had been made partaker of the sufferings of Christ: the hour was come for her to share His triumph and His joy.
“Whom seekest thou?” the Stranger asked. What a question for that loving heart. Thou knowest, Lord, that from the time her tears fell on Thy feet, she has sought Thee alone. She has sought Thee humbly, bravely, perseveringly. And Thou hast said: “Seek and you shall find.”
Thinking she has before her the gardener who if tactfully approached may aid her in her search, she says: “Sir, if thou hast taken Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.”
“Him”—no name. She supposes her Lord to be the one object in every mind and heart as in her own. “I will take Him away.” “Love often knows no measure but is inflamed above all measure. Love feels no burden, values no labours, would willingly do more than it can, complains not of impossibility because it conceives that it may and can do all things” (Imit. III., 5).
Our Lord can hide Himself no longer. Jesus saith to her: “Mary!” He calls her by her name as He was wont to do when she sat at His feet at Bethany. The tones of that Voice are unlike those of any other—It is Himself! She turning saith to Him: “Rabboni!” What fulness, what intensity of love and joy are summed up in that word. What rapture is there in this first moment of recognition, in this sudden transition from the depths of desolation to joy that is heaven begun. What compensation and more than compensation for the anguish of the past is contained in those two words: “Mary!” “Rabboni!” It is no vision. It is not too good to be true. See hands, and feet, and side. It is Himself: “Rabboni! Master!” She throws herself at His feet to kiss them once again. But He has a work for her to do first: “Go to my brethren and say to them: ‘I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God.’” Mary Magdalen went and told them that had been with Him... and telleth the disciples: “I have seen the Lord and these things He said to me.”
The Church reserves her Credo for Masses on high festivals, and for the Feast of her Apostles and Doctors. One exception she makes, if exception it can be called. It is for “the woman that was a sinner,” whose name the Son of God will have associated with His own throughout all time; whom He Himself has made Doctor, Evangelist, Apostle to the Apostles; the bearer of the gladdest tidings earth has ever heard; the first preacher of the Gospel of the Resurrection—blessed Mary Magdalen.
V.—In the evening weeping shall have place, and in the morning gladness.—Ps. xxix.
What an evening was that of the first Good Friday to the disciples of Christ! The Shepherd had been stricken, and the flock was scattered. Hiding, perchance, among the tombs in the gloomy valleys round about Jerusalem, or in obscure corners of the city, they gave themselves up to the utter dejection consequent on the overthrow of all their hopes.
Sights and sounds of fear were on every side. The rending of the veil of the Temple and the disclosure of the Holy of Holies had filled every heart with consternation. And men were telling how rocks had been cloven asunder, and tombs were opening, and the bodies of the saints, arising, were coming into the city and appearing to many.
Such testimony to the Divinity of their Master might surely have saved the disciples from the blank despondency which had settled upon them. But their hopelessness was proof against the voice of nature as against the voice of the prophets. All was over. All had ended in failure. The happy days with Him only made the present and the future more intolerable. What were they to do? Go back to Galilee and to their nets, and try to forget that for three years they had been the companions, the intimate friends of Jesus of Nazareth?
Such will have been their thoughts as the evening wore on. When night fell they might have been seen creeping under cover of the darkness to the Supper room on Mount Sion. There, in all probability they kept together during the following day.
What a Pasch for them! Jerusalem was trying to rejoice, striving to forget in the celebrations of the Feast the darkness of that awful noon of yesterday. But in vain. From the palaces of Pilate and Herod, and the Chief Priests, from the Temple Courts to the remotest tent pitched on the outskirts of the city, one memory was in all minds, one Name was in every mouth.
See the Eleven talking together in the Upper Chamber, humbly gathering from the holy women the last incidents on Calvary. Watch Peter’s face as they tell how to John, the only one of the Twelve there, was committed the Blessed Mother. How it was to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus she had to look to render the last services to her Son. See how his tears break forth again and again; how pitying and how tender John is with him. See Mary in her desolation, brave, unshaken in her trust, resuming in her single self the faith and hope, if not the charity of the infant Church. She believes in the triumph that is at hand. But until God’s hour for consolation has come, the anguish of her soul is supreme. Yet she is not self-centred. Her motherly heart goes out to the sorrowing disciples. She strives to soothe them and to reanimate their hope. And her words have at least this success that she keeps them together in their desolation.
We wonder, perhaps, that with her absolute faith in the Resurrection on the third day, our Lady’s woe could have been so complete. But the Apostle tells us “We are not sufficient for ourselves.” We cannot console ourselves. A comforter must be one from without. All her life through her Comforter was God alone. And He was withholding His consolation till the appointed hour. ‘Therefore do I weep, and my eyes run down with water, because the Comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me” (Lament. 1).
As soon as the Sabbath rest is over, Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, hasten to the bazaars to buy spices wherewith to finish the embalming of the sacred body. During the evening they make their preparations, and very early on the first day of the week “when it was yet dark,” they set out for the Sepulchre. They must have known of the stone that closed the entrance, and of the seal, and the guards. Yet till they were fairly on their way, no difficulty occurred to them. Love is blind, we are told. It has certainly a marvellous inability to see obstacles in its path. Even when hindrances began to force themselves on their attention, they were not dismayed. Nothing affrighted or stopped them. Neither the darkness, nor the earthquake, nor guards, nor stone, nor the fear of the Jews, which, until the coming of the Holy Ghost, paralysed the Apostles. “Who shall roll us back the stone,” was the only question. “And looking, they saw the stone rolled back.” It is not God’s way to leave unrewarded faith and love such as theirs. The greater the obstacle the more easily it yields to love and trust.
We see their confidence again in the absence of surprise at the miracle worked for them. They took it as a matter of course that God would help them. “And entering into the Sepulchre they saw a young man sitting at the right side clothed with a white robe, and they were astonished”—for the first time. “Who said to them: ‘Fear not for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen as He said. Come, and see the place where the Lord was laid. And going quickly tell His disciples and Peter that He is risen: and behold, He will go before you into Galilee; there you shall see Him. Lo! I have foretold it to you.’ And they went... quickly... with fear and great joy, running to tell His disciples.”
“And behold Jesus met them, saying: ‘All hail.’ But they came up and took hold of His feet and adored Him. Then Jesus said to them ‘Fear not, go tell My brethren that they go into Galilee, there they shall see Me.’”
Oh that we could share their adoration and their joy! He is our Master as well as theirs. To each one of us it is said as we come to meditate on the Resurrection: “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” That we could forget ourselves for awhile, and our little interests and sorrows! That, filled with the spirit of our Mother, the Church, we could cry out with her: “Receive, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the offerings of Thy exulting Church” (Secret for Low Sunday). “This is the Day which the Lord hath made, let us be glad and rejoice therein” (Ps. 117).
VI.—When it was late and the disciples were gathered together Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them: “Peace be to you.”—John xx.