We Cannot Keep the Great News to Ourselves

To Mary Magdalene the Lord said: "Do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father" (John 20:17). This is an expression that surprises us, especially when we compare it to what happens with the incredulous Thomas. There, in the cenacle, it was the Risen One himself who presented his hands and his side so that Thomas touch them and find the certainty that it was Jesus (cf. 20:27). In reality the two episodes are not opposed to each other; on the contrary, the one helps us understand the other.

Mary Magdalene wanted to have the same master as before, taking the cross to be a dramatic memory to forget. Now, however, there is no room for a merely human relationship with the Risen One. To encounter him one need not go back but place oneself into a new relationship with him: One must go forward! St. Bernard emphasizes this: Jesus "invites all of us to this new life, to this passage.… We do not see Christ if we turn backward" (Sermon on Easter). This is what happened to Thomas. Jesus showed him his wounds not so as to forget the cross, but to make it unforgettable even in the future.

It is toward the future that our gaze in now directed. The task of the disciple is to bear witness to the death and Resurrection of his master and his new life. For this reason Jesus invites his incredulous friend to "touch him": He wants to give direct testimony of his resurrection.

Dear brothers and sisters, we too, like Mary Magdalene, Thomas and the other apostles, are called to be witnesses of the death and resurrection of Christ. We cannot keep the great news to ourselves. We must tell it to all the world: "We have seen the Lord!" (John 20:25). ~ Pope Benedict XVI