HOMILY 25. Delivered to the people in the basilica of Saint John, which is called the Constantiniana, on Thursday of Easter.
READING FROM THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN. At that time, Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent down and looked into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid. They said to her: Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them: Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her: Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him: Lord, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus said to her: Mary. She turned and said to him: Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples: I have seen the Lord, and he said these things to me.
Mary Magdalene, who had been a sinner in the city, by loving the truth, washed away the stains of her sin with tears: and the voice of Truth is fulfilled, by which it is said: Many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much. For she who had previously remained cold through sinning, afterward burned ardently through loving. For after she came to the tomb, and did not find the Lord's body there, she believed it had been taken away, and announced this to the disciples. They came and saw, and believed that it was as the woman had said. And of them it is immediately written: The disciples therefore went away to their own homes. And then it is added: But Mary stood at the tomb outside, weeping. In this matter it should be considered how great a force of love had kindled this woman's mind, who did not depart from the Lord's tomb even when the disciples departed. She was seeking the one she had not found, she wept while seeking, and inflamed by the fire of her love, she burned with desire for him whom she believed had been taken away. Hence it happened that she alone then saw him, she who remained to seek, because indeed the virtue of a good work is perseverance, and by the voice of Truth it is said: He who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved. And by the precept of the law, the tail of the victim is commanded to be offered in sacrifice. In the tail, of course, is the end of the body; and he sacrifices well who brings the sacrifice of a good work to the end of the required action. Hence Joseph is described as having had a full-length tunic among the rest of his brothers. A tunic reaching to the heel is a good work carried through to completion.
But Mary, as she wept, stooped down and looked into the tomb. Certainly she had already seen the tomb empty, had already announced that the Lord had been taken away; why is it that she stoops down again, desires to see again? But for one who loves, to have looked once is not enough, because the force of love multiplies the intensity of searching. Therefore she sought first, and did not find; she persevered in seeking, whence it happened that she found, and it came about that desires delayed grew, and growing, grasped what they had found. Hence it is that the Church says of the same bridegroom in the Song of Songs: "In my bed through the nights I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, and did not find him. I will arise and go about the city; through the streets and squares I will seek him whom my soul loves." She also repeats the failure of finding, saying: "I sought him, and did not find him." But because discovery does not delay itself long if the search does not cease, she adds: "The watchmen who guard the city found me. Have you seen him whom my soul loves? When I had passed a little beyond them, I found him whom my soul loves." For we seek the beloved in bed when in some little rest of the present life we sigh with longing for our Redeemer. We seek by night, because even if the mind is now awake in him, nevertheless the eye still grows dim. But whoever does not find his beloved, it remains that he arise and go about the city, that is, traverse the holy Church of the elect with mind and inquiry; let him seek him through streets and squares, that is, let him observe those walking through narrow and broad ways, so that if he can find any traces of him in them, he may search them out, because there are some, even of secular life, who have something to imitate in the practice of virtue. But as we seek, the watchmen who guard the city find us, because the holy fathers who guard the state of the Church meet our good endeavors, that they may teach us by their word or their writing. When we pass a little beyond them, we find him whom we love, because our Redeemer, though by humility a man among men, was nevertheless by divinity above men. Therefore when the watchmen are passed by, the beloved is found, because when we perceive that the prophets and apostles are beneath him, we consider that he who is God by nature is above men. First, therefore, he is sought without being found, so that afterward, when found, he may be held more tightly. For holy desires, as we have said, grow by delay. But if they fail by delay, they were not desires. With this love burned whoever was able to reach the truth. Hence David says: "My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?" Hence he admonishes us, saying: "Seek his face always." Hence the prophet says: "My soul has desired you in the night, but also with my spirit in my inmost heart I will watch for you from early morning." Hence again the Church says in the Song of Songs: "I am wounded with love." For it is just that she should reach health from the sight of the physician, who bears the wound of love in her breast through the heat of her desire for him. Hence again she says: "My soul melted when the beloved spoke." For the mind of a person not seeking the form of its Creator is badly hardened, because it remains cold in itself. But if it has now begun to burn with desire to follow him whom it loves, melted by the fire of love it runs. It becomes anxious with desire, all things in the world that pleased grow worthless, there is nothing that delights outside the Creator, and things that formerly delighted the soul afterward become grievously burdensome. Nothing consoles its sadness, as long as he who is desired is not yet seen. The mind grieves, the very light is wearisome; and by such fire the rust of guilt is refined in the mind, and the kindled soul, as if in the manner of gold, because through use it lost its appearance, becomes bright through burning.
And so she who loves thus, who bends down again to the tomb she had looked at, let us see by what fruit the force of love redoubles in her the work of seeking. It follows: She saw two angels in white, sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid. What does it mean that two angels are seen in the place of the Lord's body, one sitting at the head, and the other at the feet, except that in the Latin language an angel is called a messenger, and he was to be announced through his passion, who is both God before all ages, and man at the end of the ages? It is as if the angel sits at the head, when through the apostle John it is proclaimed that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And it is as if the angel sits at the feet, when he says: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. We can also understand the two Testaments by the two angels, one earlier and the other following. These angels are joined to one another through the place of the Lord's body, because indeed both Testaments, while they announce with equal meaning that the Lord became incarnate and died and rose again, sit as it were the earlier Testament at the head, and the later Testament at the feet. Hence also the two cherubim that cover the mercy seat look upon one another with their faces turned toward the mercy seat. For cherubim means fullness of knowledge. And what is signified by the two cherubim except both Testaments? And what is figured by the mercy seat except the incarnate Lord? Of whom John says: For he is the propitiation for our sins. And while the Old Testament proclaims that this was to be done which the New Testament declares was done concerning the Lord, it is as if both cherubim look upon one another, while they turn their faces toward the mercy seat, because while they see the incarnate Lord placed between them, they do not disagree in their view, for they narrate the mystery of his dispensation in harmony.
The angels seek Mary, saying: "Woman, why do you weep?" And she says to them: "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." For indeed the sacred words which stir up tears of love in us also console those same tears, since they promise us the sight of our Redeemer. But it should be noted according to the historical sense that the woman did not say: "They have taken away the body of my Lord," but "They have taken away my Lord." For it is the usage of sacred Scripture sometimes to signify the whole from a part, and sometimes a part from the whole. For it signifies the whole from a part, as it is written concerning the sons of Jacob: "That Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy souls." For souls did not descend into Egypt without bodies; but through the soul alone the whole person is signified, because the whole is expressed from a part. And only the Lord's body had lain in the tomb, and Mary was not seeking the body of the Lord, but the Lord who had been taken away, evidently designating a part from the whole. When she had said these things, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, and she did not know that it was Jesus. It should be noted that Mary, who still doubted about the Lord's resurrection, turned around to see Jesus, because evidently through that very doubt of hers she had, as it were, turned her back to the Lord's face, since she did not at all believe that he had risen. But because she both loved and doubted, she saw and did not recognize him, and love both showed him to her and doubt hid him. Her continued ignorance is expressed when it is added: "And she did not know that it was Jesus." He said to her: "Woman, why do you weep? Whom do you seek?" The cause of her grief is asked so that her desire might be increased, so that when she named the one she sought, she might burn more ardently in love for him. She, supposing that he was the gardener, said to him: "Lord, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Perhaps this woman did not err even in erring, who believed Jesus to be the gardener. For was he not spiritually a gardener to her, who was planting the flourishing seeds of virtues in her heart through his love?
But what is it that, seeing him whom she believed to be the gardener, to whom she had not yet said whom she was seeking, she says: "Lord, if you have taken him away"? For as if she had already said from whose desire she was weeping, she speaks of him whom she had not mentioned. But the force of love is accustomed to do this in the soul: that it believes no one else is ignorant of him whom it always thinks about. Rightly this woman does not say whom she seeks, and yet says: "If you have taken him away," because she does not think him unknown to another, whom she thus continuously mourns with desire. Jesus says to her: "Mary." After he called her by the common word for her sex, and was not recognized, he calls her by name. As if he openly said to her: Recognize him by whom you are recognized. To the perfect man also it is said: "I know you by name," because "man" is the common word for all of us, but "Moses" is proper, to whom it is rightly said that he is known by name, as if the Lord openly said to him: I do not know you generally as the rest, but specially. Therefore Mary, because she is called by name, recognizes her author, and immediately calls him rabbi, that is, teacher, because he himself was the one who was being sought outwardly, and he himself was the one who was teaching her inwardly to seek. Now indeed what the woman did is not added by the evangelist, but it is indicated by what she heard. To whom it is said: "Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father." For in these words it is shown that Mary wished to embrace the feet of him whom she recognized. But the teacher says to her: "Do not touch me." Not because the Lord after the resurrection refused the touch of women, since of the two coming to his tomb it is written: "They approached, and held his feet."
But the reason why she should not touch him is also added when he continues: "For I have not yet ascended to my Father." For in our heart Jesus ascends to the Father when he is believed to be equal to the Father. For whoever does not believe him equal to the Father, in his breast the Lord has not yet ascended to the Father. Therefore that person truly touches Jesus who believes the Son to be coeternal with the Father. For in the heart of Paul, Jesus had already ascended to the Father when the same Paul was saying: "Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God." Hence John also touched our Redeemer with the hand of faith, who says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him." Therefore that person touches the Lord who believes him equal to the Father in eternity of substance. But perhaps someone is troubled by the silent question of how the Son can be equal to the Father. In this matter, what human nature cannot grasp by wondering, it remains that it should know this to be credible from another wonder. For it has something by which it may briefly answer itself on these matters. For it is established that he himself created the mother in whose virgin womb he was to be created from humanity. What wonder then if he is equal to the Father, who is prior to his mother? With Paul also attesting, we have learned that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Therefore whoever thinks the Son is lesser detracts particularly from the Father, whose wisdom he confesses to be unequal to him. For what powerful man would calmly bear it if someone said to him: "You are indeed great, but nevertheless your wisdom is less than you"? The Lord himself also says: "I and the Father are one." And again he says: "The Father is greater than I." Of whom it is also written that he was subject to his parents. What wonder then if from his humanity he asserts himself less than the Father in heaven, from which he was also subject to his parents on earth? From which humanity it is now said to Mary: "Go to my brothers and tell them: I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God." Since he says "my" and "your," why does he not say "our" in common? But speaking distinctly he indicates that he has the same Father and God differently than we do. "I ascend to my Father," namely by nature; "and your Father," by grace. "To my God," because I descended; "to your God," because you will ascend. For because I too am man, God is mine; because you are freed from error, God is yours. Therefore distinctly is he my Father and God, because he whom he begot as God before the ages, he created as man with me at the end of the ages. "Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples: I have seen the Lord, and he said these things to me." Behold, the guilt of the human race is cut off from where it proceeded. For because in paradise a woman served death to man, from the tomb a woman announces life to men; and she narrates the words of her life-giver who had narrated the words of the death-bearing serpent. As if the Lord says to the human race not in words but in deeds: From the same hand by which the drink of death was brought to you, receive the cup of life.
We have run through these matters concerning the exposition of the Gospel reading briefly; now, with the help of the same Lord of whom we speak, let us consider both the glory of His resurrection and the depths of His compassion. For He willed to rise from death more quickly, lest our soul remain long in the death of unbelief. Hence it is also well said through the Psalmist: "He shall drink of the torrent in the way, therefore shall He lift up His head." For indeed from the very beginning of the world a torrent of death had flowed forth in the human race: but the Lord drank of this torrent in the way, because He tasted death in passing. And therefore He lifted up His head, because what He laid in the tomb by dying, He raised above the angels by rising again; and from that point He struck down the ancient enemy forever, from the very place where He temporarily permitted the hands of persecutors to rage against Him. This the Lord openly indicates to blessed Job, saying: "Will you catch Leviathan with a hook?"
By Leviathan, which means "their addition," that whale who devours the human race is designated. For while he promised to add divinity to man, he took away immortality. And the guilt of transgression, which he gave the first man to drink, he multiplies to those who follow him through the worst persuasion, heaping punishments upon them without end. On a hook, however, the bait is shown while the barb is hidden. Therefore the almighty Father caught him with a hook, because he sent his incarnate only-begotten Son to that one's death, in whom both the passible flesh could be seen and the impassible divinity could not be seen. And when that serpent, through the hands of his persecutors, bit the bait of his body, the barb of divinity pierced him through. He had known him earlier as God through his miracles, but from his knowledge he fell into doubt when he saw him subject to suffering. The hook therefore held fast the jaws of the one swallowing, since in him the bait of flesh was visible, which the devourer might seize; and the divinity lay hidden during the time of the passion, which would slay him. He was caught on the hook of his incarnation, because while he seized the bait of the body in him, he was pierced by the barb of divinity. For there was present the humanity which would draw the devourer to itself; there was the divinity which would pierce him through; there was the open weakness which would provoke him; there was the hidden power which would transfix the throat of the plunderer. He was caught, therefore, on the hook, because he perished from the very thing he bit. And he lost those mortals whom he rightfully held, because he presumed to attack with death the immortal one over whom he had no rightful claim.
Hence it is also that this very Mary of whom we speak lives, because He who owed nothing to death lay down for the human race. Hence it is that we daily return to life after our sins, because our Creator descended without guilt to our punishment. Behold, the ancient enemy has now lost the spoils he had begun to take from the human race; he has lost the victory of his supplanting. Daily sinners return to life; daily they are snatched from his jaws by the hand of the Redeemer. Wherefore it is also well said again to blessed Job by the voice of the Lord: "Or will you pierce his jaw with a bracelet?" Where a bracelet is placed, it constrains by encircling. What then is designated by the bracelet, if not the divine mercy embracing us? Which pierces the jaw of this Leviathan, when it still shows us the remedy of repentance after we have committed what it forbade. The Lord pierces the jaw of Leviathan with a bracelet, because by the ineffable power of His mercy He so opposes the malice of the ancient enemy that sometimes he loses even those whom he had already seized. And they fall as if from his mouth, who return to innocence after committing sins. For who, once seized by his mouth, would escape his jaw, if it had not been pierced? Did he not hold Peter in his mouth when he denied? Did he not hold David in his mouth when he plunged himself into such a pit of lust? But when each returned to life through repentance, this Leviathan in a certain way lost them as if through the hole in his jaw. Therefore through the hole in his jaw those were withdrawn from his mouth who returned through repenting after committing such great wickedness. But what man escapes the mouth of this Leviathan so as to commit no unlawful thing? But from this we know how much we are debtors to the Redeemer of the human race, who not only forbade us to go into the mouth of Leviathan, but also granted us to return from his mouth. He did not take away hope from the sinner, because He pierced his jaw to provide a way of escape, so that he who incautiously refused beforehand to beware lest he be bitten might at least flee after the bite. Therefore heavenly medicine meets us everywhere, because He both gave man precepts lest he sin, and yet gave remedies to the sinner lest he despair. Wherefore it must be most carefully guarded against that anyone be seized by the mouth of this Leviathan through delight in sin; and yet if he has been seized, let him not despair, because if he perfectly mourns his sin, he still finds a hole in his jaw through which he may escape.
A witness of divine mercy is present: this very Mary of whom we speak, about whom the Pharisee, wishing to obstruct the fountain of piety, said: "If this man were a prophet, he would surely know who and what kind of woman this is who touches him, that she is a sinner." But she washed the stains of her heart and body with tears, and touched the feet of her Redeemer, she who had abandoned her wicked ways. She sat at the feet of Jesus and heard the word from his mouth. She had clung to him while living; she sought him when dead. She found living the one whom she had sought as dead. And she found such a place of grace with him that she herself announced him even to the apostles themselves, that is, to his messengers. What therefore, brothers, what ought we to observe in this matter, except the immense mercy of our Creator, who has set before us as a sign for an example of repentance those whom he caused to live after their fall through repentance? For I consider Peter, I reflect upon the thief, I look at Zacchaeus, I gaze upon Mary, and I see nothing else in these except examples of hope and repentance placed before our eyes. For perhaps someone has fallen in faith; let him look to Peter, who wept bitterly because he had denied out of fear. Another has burned against his neighbor in the malice of cruelty; let him look to the thief, who even at the very moment of death arrived at the rewards of life through repentance. Another, panting with the fevers of avarice, has seized the property of others; let him look to Zacchaeus, who if he had taken anything from anyone, restored it fourfold. Another, inflamed by the fire of lust, has lost the purity of the flesh; let him look to Mary, who burned out the love of the flesh in herself with the fire of divine love. Behold, almighty God everywhere sets before our eyes those whom we ought to imitate, everywhere he places examples of his mercy before us. Therefore let evils now displease us, even those already experienced. Almighty God willingly forgets that we were guilty; he is ready to reckon our repentance as innocence for us. Defiled after the waters of salvation, let us be reborn from tears. Therefore, according to the voice of the first Pastor, like newborn infants desire milk. Return, little children, to the bosom of your mother, eternal wisdom; suck the abundant breasts of God's mercy; lament what is past, avoid what is imminent. Our Redeemer will console our momentary weeping with eternal joy, he who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, through all ages of ages. Amen.