ACC ~ John 20 v11

WHY DOES MARY TAKE A SECOND LOOK?

AUGUSTINE: What then does it mean, that, as she wept, she stooped down and looked again into the sepulcher? Was it because her grief was so excessive that she hardly thought she could believe either their eyes or her own? Or was it rather by some divine impulse that her mind led her to look within? TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 121.1. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:436-37*.

MARY’S LOVE CAUSES HER TO REMAIN

GREGORY THE GREAT: Mary Magdalene, who had been a sinner in the city, [1] loved the Truth and so washed away with her tears the stains of wickedness. [2] Her sins had kept her cold, but afterward she burned with an irresistible love. … We must consider this woman’s state of mind whose great force of love inflamed her. When even the disciples departed from the sepulcher, she did not depart. She looked for him whom she had not found. … But it is not enough for a lover to have looked once, because the force of love intensifies the effort of the search. She looked for him a first time and found nothing. She persevered in seeking, and that is why she found him. As her unfulfilled desires increased, they took possession of what they found. [3] … Holy desires, as I have told you before, increase by delay in their fulfillment. If delay causes them to fail, they were not desires. … This was Mary’s kind of love as she turned a second time to the sepulcher she had already looked into. Let us see the result of her search, which had been redoubled by the power of love. FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 25. [4]

[1] Lk 7:37.

[2] Gregory cites Lk 7:47.

[3] Gregory cites Song 3:1-4.

[4] CS 123:187-90**.