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FEATURES / Matthew’s gospel narrative The dramatic significance of the moment when the risen Jesus ‘came to meet’ Mary Magdalene and the other Mary is often overlooked / By GERALD O’COLLINS Easter greeting THREE EPISODES in the final chapter of Matthew’s Gospel capture our attention. First, Mary Magdalene and her companion – “the other Mary” – discover the tomb of Jesus to be open and empty. A glorious “angel of the Lord” announces the Resurrection of Jesus and instructs the two women to convey this astonishing news to 11 male “disciples” (Matthew 28:7, 8). The men are to keep a rendezvous with Jesus in Galilee. The second episode describes the bribing of the guards who had watched over the tomb of Jesus. They had believed themselves to be guarding a corpse but, ironically, it was they who “became like dead men”, struck down by the angel of the Lord (28:4). The members of this guard knew the truth but took a large sum of money from the chief priests to remain silent about what God had done. They were paid to allege that, while they slept, “his disciples” came and stole the body of Jesus. St Augustine would later mock these witnesses, who proposed a story but admitted to being asleep at the time it happened. In a third episode, Matthew presents the risen Jesus’ great commission to “the 11 disciples” (the Twelve now minus the traitor Judas Iscariot). They must evangelise “all nations” and baptise them “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS A hasty reading of the two verses that describe the brief encounter of the two women with the risen Jesus could mistake them as simply repeating what we have already heard at the tomb from the “angel of the Lord”. But the short passage contains much to nourish and illuminate faith. First, Jesus “came to meet them” (Matthew 28:9). The two women have already received the angelic message of the Resurrection and have seen the empty tomb for themselves. Now a personal encounter with the risen Jesus himself confirms what they already know. The conventional translation (“met them”) hides the dramatic sense of this verb. This is the only time in the entire New Testament that, either in his earthly life or in his risen existence, Jesus is literally said to “come to meet” a group or an individual. The verb suggests how highly Jesus values the two women and their mission and how much he desires to be with them and to encourage them. Three Marys at the Tomb of Christ from the church in Niegowic (Nicolaus Haberschrack) full shape of their mission. They are joining each other in Galilee. There they will learn from Jesus what they must do. He has yet to summarise for them the great commission they are to receive. The two women’s personal encounter with the risen Jesus also emphasises further the importance of his coming appearance to the 11 men on a mountain in Galilee. Not only LIKE THE MAGI with the Christ child (Matthew 2:11), Mary Magdalene and her companion react to the presence of Jesus by kneeling before him and worshipping him. They pay him the reverence that is even more appropriate after his Resurrection from the dead. In the clearest manner, the two women anticipate what the 11 male disciples would be enabled to do later on a mountain in Galilee. Appearing to them and then approaching even closer, the risen Jesus dispelled their initial doubts, and they, too, “worshipped him” (Matthew 28:17). They came to share the believing insight of the two women: here in the person of the crucified and risen Jesus, we reverence and adore the living divine presence, “Emmanuel, God with us” (Matthew 1:23). Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” also anticipate the ministry of the male disciples. The women are on the road, intent on performing their mission to transmit the Easter tidings. The 11 male disciples, far from being already engaged with the task of “making disciples of all nations”, still have to discover the The brief encounter with Mary Magdalene and her companion is a small gem that gleams with meaning an angel of the Lord but also the risen Jesus himself announces that rendezvous. No other post-Resurrection appearance in the gospels, Acts or the Pauline correspond ence has been three times announced in advance (see Matthew 26:32, as well as 28:7,10). Repeating what will happen enhances the significance of the final, majestic appearance to the 11 male disciples in Galilee. Finally, attentive reading of what Jesus says when he comes to meet Mary Magdalene and her companion notices a quiet but richly important choice of language. One would have expected the 11 men to be called “disciples”, as they are four times in Matthew’s final chapter (28:7, 8, 13, 16). But Jesus calls them instead “brothers”, hinting at his forgiving them for abandoning him and at their now becoming members of the new family of God. 4 | THE TABLET | 30 MARCH 2024 For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk
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EASTER REFLECTION PHOTO: ALAMY/AP, FRANCO ORIGLIA ‘May the longing for peace inscribed in every human heart overcome this terrible darkness’ By CARDINAL VINCENT NICHOLS TEN YEARS ago I made my first visit to Gaza City. Two years later I returned. Even though many years have since passed, the memories of those visits remain sharp and their impact vivid. The present destruction of so much of that territory and the dreadful toll of death and injury among so many innocent people serves to refresh and magnify the distress and frustration I felt in those early visits. In the summer of 2014, there was open warfare between Israel and Hamas and aligned groups. Its immediate provocation was the kidnap and murder by Hamas of three Israeli teenagers. The war lasted six weeks until late August; I visited Gaza in late November. Everywhere, I saw devastation, homelessness and poverty. Almost half of the homes in Gaza City were damaged or destroyed. Children were living on the street, sleeping in the rubble. My photographs of that time are reflections in a minor key of the scenes we see today. I was told of the divisions within the Islamic power base in Gaza, of the presence of five or six competing Islamist movements and of Hamas agents having recently killed a small group of Isis activists. Gaza was described as “a toxic cocktail”. When I returned in 2016, Hamas had consolidated its position. It was clearly in command. I was told that electricity supplies were available to the general population often for no more than six hours a day, then being diverted underground to the Hamas infrastructure. I was told that a sure sign of an imminent Hamas attack on Israel was the disappearance from the streets of all the large cars. For so long, life for the people of Gaza has been cramped and hampered, their freedom tightly circumscribed. I remember sitting with the children and young people of the parish of the Holy Family, the only Catholic church in Gaza. The younger children did what children do. I am the proud owner of a neckerchief of the St Joseph’s Scout Troop in Gaza City. The young people spoke, calmly but with immense frustration, of their options: to stay in their family and community, severely limiting their education and career opportunities, or to leave, never to return. My priority on those visits was to express my support and admiration for the parish community. The work done to care for the tiniest of babies, for the elderly and for abandoned children, and the provision of schooling, is well known and serves all the people of Gaza. The sisters and the priests I met in those days were steadfast and utterly dedicated. The present parish priest, Fr Gabriel Romanelli, who was away from Gaza on 7 October, may well be the only person who is just longing to get back into Gaza City, to be with the people still hanging on to life inside his parish compound. But what of the present? The current conflict is immensely worse on every count than the 50-day war of 2014. The Hamas atrocities of 7 October were beyond description. They must never be forgotten or minimised. The day-to-day agony of the families of those kidnapped and still being held is unimaginable. The response of the Israeli government, even if it is being conducted with the careful planning that is claimed, has been overwhelming and devastating, and has taken a terrible toll on innocent life. Now the fear of famine inside Gaza is widespread. A million people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger. And all the while there is an existential question deep in the heart of Jewish people: “Who will protect us?” The lessons of the last century have planted in them the response, “No one! We must defend ourselves!” Yet one day this warfare, like the other conflicts in this region since 2008, will come to an end. And when it does, will we be able to say that this war has succeeded in eliminating Hamas? I doubt it. It certainly will have left a trail of utter devastation, of hunger verging on famine, of anger and resentment and deep rivers of bitterness that will irrigate future violence. The rebuilding that will be necessary will not only be in concrete and steel, but in hearts and minds. It will only be possible with a turn towards mutual tolerance and acceptance from those who today are implacable enemies. In Christian eyes, this is the land of Jesus. Gaza is the pathway taken by the Holy Family on their flight from death. Jesus returned. He entered the realm of hostility and death. In the Cross, his was a deep experience of abandonment. Yet he was raised from that darkness and holds out to us the light and pathway of reconciliation. He offers a security that no military power can match. A hunger for this reconciliation and peace is already inscribed in every human heart. May that longing overcome this terrible darkness, and be embodied in leaders who truly want peace, supported by people who will not allow that hope to be extinguished. Cardinal Vincent Nichols is the Archbishop of Westminster. This significant change of language prompts us to think of the brotherhood and sisterhood in God’s final family. It recalls the words of Jesus: “And pointing to his disciples, he said: ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in Heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:49–50). A further cargo of meaning emerges in what Matthew writes briefly about Jesus meeting Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. One detail, however, shows those two verses sharing a major characteristic of the 20 verses that form the final chapter of this gospel. Unlike the other gospels, Matthew 28 does not refer to the risen Jesus with the titles “Lord”, “Christ” or “Son of Man”. While once (in a now standard baptismal formula) calling Jesus “the Son”, Matthew 28 – and that includes twice in the meeting with the two women – refers to him five times by his personal name “Jesus”. The name not only holds together the final chapter but also unifies the whole story of Jesus’ teaching, healing and other activity in his ministry. UP TO AND including the Passion narrative of chapters 26 and 27, Matthew has cited the inspired Scriptures to illuminate the birth, ministry and suffering of Jesus. Now in the Easter chapter the Scriptures fall silent. Jesus acts and speaks for himself, the divine Emmanuel who always accompanies the Church on her universal mission until the end of time. In the Easter liturgy, it’s almost all Mark, Luke and John. From the Vigil service on Holy Saturday right through the Easter octave, only one passage from Matthew is appointed for Mass in this liturgical year: Matthew 28:8-15 on Easter Monday. The risen Christ’s appearance to the two women (28:9–10) falls out of focus. It serves (only?) to introduce the much longer story of the bribing of the guards (28:11–15). Yet, as we have seen, the brief encounter with Mary Magdalene and her companion is a small gem that gleams with meaning – not least through the discreet hint of a genuine bodily resurrection when the women “take hold” of Jesus’ feet in worshipping him. In two verses that meeting is recalled – a brief account, and yet one that also nourishes faith in the risen Jesus. Gerald O’Collins SJ is emeritus professor of the Gregorian University, Rome. For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk 30 MARCH 2024 | THE TABLET | 5

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FEATURES / Matthew’s gospel narrative

The dramatic significance of the moment when the risen Jesus ‘came to meet’ Mary Magdalene and the other Mary is often overlooked / By GERALD O’COLLINS

Easter greeting

THREE EPISODES in the final chapter of Matthew’s Gospel capture our attention. First, Mary Magdalene and her companion – “the other Mary” – discover the tomb of Jesus to be open and empty. A glorious “angel of the Lord” announces the Resurrection of Jesus and instructs the two women to convey this astonishing news to 11 male “disciples” (Matthew 28:7, 8). The men are to keep a rendezvous with Jesus in Galilee.

The second episode describes the bribing of the guards who had watched over the tomb of Jesus. They had believed themselves to be guarding a corpse but, ironically, it was they who “became like dead men”, struck down by the angel of the Lord (28:4). The members of this guard knew the truth but took a large sum of money from the chief priests to remain silent about what God had done. They were paid to allege that, while they slept, “his disciples” came and stole the body of Jesus.

St Augustine would later mock these witnesses, who proposed a story but admitted to being asleep at the time it happened.

In a third episode, Matthew presents the risen Jesus’ great commission to “the 11 disciples” (the Twelve now minus the traitor Judas Iscariot). They must evangelise “all nations” and baptise them “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

A hasty reading of the two verses that describe the brief encounter of the two women with the risen Jesus could mistake them as simply repeating what we have already heard at the tomb from the “angel of the Lord”. But the short passage contains much to nourish and illuminate faith. First, Jesus “came to meet them” (Matthew 28:9). The two women have already received the angelic message of the Resurrection and have seen the empty tomb for themselves. Now a personal encounter with the risen Jesus himself confirms what they already know. The conventional translation (“met them”) hides the dramatic sense of this verb. This is the only time in the entire New Testament that, either in his earthly life or in his risen existence, Jesus is literally said to “come to meet” a group or an individual. The verb suggests how highly Jesus values the two women and their mission and how much he desires to be with them and to encourage them.

Three Marys at the Tomb of Christ from the church in Niegowic (Nicolaus Haberschrack)

full shape of their mission. They are joining each other in Galilee. There they will learn from Jesus what they must do. He has yet to summarise for them the great commission they are to receive.

The two women’s personal encounter with the risen Jesus also emphasises further the importance of his coming appearance to the 11 men on a mountain in Galilee. Not only

LIKE THE MAGI with the Christ child (Matthew 2:11), Mary Magdalene and her companion react to the presence of Jesus by kneeling before him and worshipping him. They pay him the reverence that is even more appropriate after his Resurrection from the dead. In the clearest manner, the two women anticipate what the 11 male disciples would be enabled to do later on a mountain in Galilee. Appearing to them and then approaching even closer, the risen Jesus dispelled their initial doubts, and they, too, “worshipped him” (Matthew 28:17). They came to share the believing insight of the two women: here in the person of the crucified and risen Jesus, we reverence and adore the living divine presence, “Emmanuel, God with us” (Matthew 1:23). Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” also anticipate the ministry of the male disciples. The women are on the road, intent on performing their mission to transmit the Easter tidings. The 11 male disciples, far from being already engaged with the task of “making disciples of all nations”, still have to discover the

The brief encounter with Mary Magdalene and her companion is a small gem that gleams with meaning an angel of the Lord but also the risen Jesus himself announces that rendezvous. No other post-Resurrection appearance in the gospels, Acts or the Pauline correspond ence has been three times announced in advance (see Matthew 26:32, as well as 28:7,10). Repeating what will happen enhances the significance of the final, majestic appearance to the 11

male disciples in Galilee.

Finally, attentive reading of what Jesus says when he comes to meet Mary Magdalene and her companion notices a quiet but richly important choice of language. One would have expected the 11 men to be called “disciples”, as they are four times in Matthew’s final chapter (28:7, 8, 13, 16). But Jesus calls them instead “brothers”, hinting at his forgiving them for abandoning him and at their now becoming members of the new family of God.

4 | THE TABLET | 30 MARCH 2024

For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk

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