“NOLI ME TANGERE” is a fanciful exegesis of Christ’s encounter with Mary Magdalene in the garden after his Resurrection. It is about Mary’s embrace of Our Lord in his Newness, and his ascensions before the Ascension. Christ’s conversations were usually longer than the short snippets found in the Gospels. We are told what is essential for us to hear. Even that little is mysterious beyond our full comprehension. So it is helpful if we take the few lines the Spirit has moved the Gospel writer to give us and add some lines of uninspired dialogue to help us enter into the Mystery of what is done and said.
Christ: “Do not touch me”! (John 20: 17)
Mary (Giddy with joy and dizzy with surprise): What!? How can I not touch you? I’m never going to let go of you! I can’t believe my eyes! If I ever let go of you, I would never believe you were in my arms! You are really alive?! Is it you?
Christ: Of course I am. You feel me don’t you? How can you have any doubt?
She: Yes, it is you, but you are so different. I cannot put it into words. I don’t know how to say it. You are so much more than you ever were, and everything I saw in you before is fresh and different. You are brand new.
He: Yes, Mary, I am risen. What did you expect?
She: Nothing! I didn’t expect anything. I thought you were dead and that was the end of it, the end of you. I was crazy with anger and pain. That’s why I was crying my eyes out. I missed you so much. You were gone, and the only thing I could feel was empty longing.
He: You have to let go of me now. I have something to do, "for I have not yet ascended to the Father." (John 20: 17) And I have something for you to do too.
She: Not yet, not yet. I still can’t get it into my head that it really is you. Am I really holding you in my arms?
He: (laughing): Who would you be holding if not me? There is no one else in your arms. Who did you think I was?
She: The gardener. I thought you were the gardener.
He (smiling): That is also true. I am Gardener as well as Teacher. You should know that by now.
She: What do you mean?
He: Mary, where did the Man and the Woman first turn away from my Father?
She: In the garden?
He: Where did my agony begin?
She: In a garden?!
He: What better place for me to flower afresh with new life than this garden? I make the world into my Father’s garden again. Mary, listen, you have to let go of me for now. This is not the time to hug me and celebrate my new life, because I have not yet gone back to the Father.
She (clutching): What has your Father got to do with it? You never pulled away from me before! Even when all those dirty-minded men were watching us as I washed your feet with nard, dried them with my hair, and kissed your toes.
He: I loved you touching me then and I love you hugging me now. But now is not yet the time to embrace and celebrate. My mission is not complete, and your work for me is not finished either. I am on my way to the Father now, and now I want you to go on your way to my disciples. As my mission is to go to Him, your mission is to go to them.
She: What are you talking about?
He: I have accomplished what the Father sent me to do. Before I can appear to my brothers, I must present to the Father all I have done. My Work belongs to Him. My Dying belongs to Him, and my Rising also. I belong to Him in all I do. I am grounded in Him. I come from Him and return to Him. I go now for his blessing on all I have accomplished, on all He has worked in me and through me. Then I will bring to all of you the joy of my risen life. Then will my risen presence console my brothers. I cannot go to them without coming from Him. That is what my mission demands. When the Twelve see me again, I will be coming from the Father.
She: I was so afraid I would never hold you again, never see you, never have contact with you. I thought I had lost you forever. You are really coming back? You are not going to leave us and stay with your Father?
He: Mary, I know your fears. Hear what I am telling you. You will have me forever, in an embrace that will never end. Now I must go to my Father, for your sake and my disciples’ sake. I must show Him all whom I have drawn to myself. I must sit at his right and tell him that my mission has been completed. You caught me in-between heaven and earth. You interrupted my return.
She: If going to Him is so urgent, why did you appear to me first? Why didn’t you just go?
He (smiling): As always, your tears melted my heart. I grant you a special privilege, an intimate blessing my brothers do not yet share. I permit you to see me before I return to the Father, so you see that I do nothing of myself. Everything I do has its origin in my Father and returns to Him, even this moment with you, and my sending you to my disciples, all that comes from Him.
She: When I think I understand I find I am more confused. How can you be with the Father now and still be here with me? How does my going to your disciples come from Him? How do I know you will come back?
He (smiling): You never run out of questions. One day you will have nothing more to ask me. At present you understand what I ask you to do, and that is sufficient. You are to “go to my brethren and tell them ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God ‘”. (John 20: 17)
She: In those exact words?
He: Yes. My Father is your Father. He never stopped being your Father, even when you stopped being his child. My Cross has cancelled out your sin and restored you to Him. Now my Father can call you and all my brothers his children again. Now the Father acknowledges all of you the same way He acknowledges me.
She: Why are you sending me to them? They know what I was, who I was in the past. They are not going to believe you sent me. They will think I am a crazy, hysterical woman. They won’t believe you are alive unless YOU go to them.
He: I make you my apostle to the apostles. Blessed are you who bring the news of my rising to their ears. Do not fear, I will come from the Father, set my brothers’ hearts on fire, and they will continue my works.
She (babbling): How do I tell them about you without appearing crazy to them? They are going to ask me what you looked like, and, and how I know it was you, and am I sure I wasn’t seeing a ghost, or dreaming or whatever. How do I explain this to them?
He: Mary, tell them truth. You know I am real because you held me in your arms. It is impossible to touch a ghost.
She: Yes but I have no words to tell them what you look like or how it feels to hold you and be held by you.
He (laughing): Then tell them you have no words. Seeing you without words should be a sign great enough to convince them that what you say is true. I must be a wonder if your words cannot capture me! Neither they nor I have ever seen you speechless! Now go! I promise you that our meeting which you have managed to stretch out so long will one day become an unending embrace.
"Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord!' and she told them that He had said these things to her." (John 20:18)
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