Dear Parishioners and Friends,
Noli me tangere (‘touch me not’) is the Latin version of a phrase spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection. This scene, from the Gospel of John, has been portrayed in numerous works of Christian art from Late Antiquity to the present. The phrase has also been used in literature, as well as on flags and as military mottoes.
Here is a selection of artistic portrayals. First is a work by Fra Angelico, the early Renaissance painter and Dominican Friar who created a series of frescoes for the friars’ cells in the Dominican Priory of San Marco in Florence. It shows Jesus and Mary in static poses inside a lush enclosed garden, with Jesus holding a garden tool over his left shoulder.
The painting below is by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), a German painter who worked in the Baroque style. This painting was commissioned as an altarpiece for All Souls College at Oxford University and is now part of the collection of the National Gallery in London. This painting, like Fra Angelico’s, shows Jesus keeping Mary at arm’s length, preventing her embracing her “Rabbouni.”
The photo below is one I took during a visit to Ely Cathedral near Cambridge, England. It shows a statue sculpted in 1964 by David Wynne (1926-2014). The title of the work is “Mary Magdalene Recognises Jesus.” Thus, it captures the moment after Jesus calls Mary by her name, and she realizes that he is not the gardener, but her Lord. One observer has written: “The figures are so thin it is as though everything has been stripped from them except the core of their being.”
The New American Bible, the translation used in the Lectionary, translates Noli me tangere as “Stop holding on to me,” implying that, at the moment Mary recognized Jesus, she probably rushed to embrace him as the dear friend he was to her. Jesus wasn’t trying to offend Mary; rather he wanted her to waste no time in telling the other disciples that he was no longer dead, but raised to life.
Maurice Zundel (1897-1975) was a Swiss theologian, and in one of his talks he said that in asking Mary Magdalene not to touch him, Jesus indicates that once the resurrection is accomplished, the link between human beings and his person must no longer be physical, but must be a bond of heart to heart. “He must establish this gap, she must understand that the only possible way is faith, that the hands can not reach the person and that it is from within, from within only, that then we can approach Him.”
However, Jesus himself said that where two or three are gathered together in his name, he is with them. He is also present to us in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. He is also present in the people we encounter throughout our lives, especially the least of our brothers and sisters. Although he was present to Mary Magdalene, Thomas and the other disciples until his Ascension, Jesus has never left us, nor will he ever be absent whenever we call upon him in faith. So, may you know the Lord’s compassionate presence this day, or whenever you are feeling lonely, rejected, desperate or unloved.
I hope you have a happy and blessed Easter!
Fr. Tim Shreenan, O.F.M.Pastor