Tuesday, April 14, 2020

They have taken away the Lord

Saint John - Chapter 20


They have taken away the Lord. J-J Tissot
[1] Una autem sabbati, Maria Magdalene venit mane, cum adhuc tenebrae essent, ad monumentum : et vidit lapidem sublatum a monumento.
And on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen cometh early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre; and she saw the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

[2] Cucurrit ergo, et venit ad Simonem Petrum, et ad alium discipulum, quem amabat Jesus, et dicit illis : Tulerunt Dominum de monumento, et nescimus ubi posuerunt eum.
She ran, therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith to them: They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.



From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)

After the Entombment of Christ. the Apostles lived together; their anxiety, shared by all the friends of Jesus, kept them assembled in one house.  They waited in the Guest-Chamber, or rather they hid themselves there, dreading discovery and further persecution.  This night, especially, they must have been agitated by vague presentiments, when they remembered certain mysterious words of the Master.  Suddenly, on Sunday morning, that is to say, on the day following the Sabbath, hasty knocks on are heard on the door.  Who can it be?  What is happening?  Are they to be arrested?  Is the persecution of the disciples to be continued and must safely again?  Saint Peter and Saint John, who are more affectionately anxious and more eager about the Master than the others, are the first to open the door.  It is Mary Magdalene who waits without; she rushes in like a hurricane, and, standing panting for breath on the threshold, she flings out the words without approaching nearer to the Apostles: "They have taken away the lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him." She is blinded by agitation.  As long as Jesus was still there, living or dead, she could manage to control her grief and deceive herself, but now that He is gone, she becomes quite mad; she must find Him at all costs, and she hurries back to the Sepulchre, followed by most of her companions.


Totus tuus ego sum 
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam 


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