Words on the Word
Mary Magdalene
Song of Songs 3.1-4: I sought him whom my heart loves.
John 20.1-18: Do not cling to me.
Our lectionary’s translation of Christ’s words to Mary, ‘Do not cling to me’, is a bit excessive. The translators have taken a liberty to clarify — perhaps too much. John’s Greek verb ἅπτομαι basically means ‘touch’. It is rendered by the traditional Latin translation Noli me tangere, which gave rise to a well-known motif in painting. Mary, usually on her knees, extends a hand towards Christ, who 
rebuffs her with a gesture while occasionally, as in Correggio’s canvas in the Prado, pointing upwards with the other hand, as if saying: ‘Do not tie me down to the earthly realm; recognise my spiritual nature!’
This, though, goes against the grain of the Gospel narrative. During his years of ministry, Christ was signally unafraid of physical contact. Think of the lepers he touched, of the blind man anointed with earth and spittle, of the washing of the feet. The pattern recurs after Easter. When the risen Christ appears to the Apostles, he asks Thomas the Twin to touch his wounds; at Emmaus he sups with pilgrims; on the shore of Lake Tiberias he breakfasts with the eleven. The evangelists stress these incidents purposely. They show that Christ’s embodiment was real, that the Word had truly become flesh, had truly died, truly risen, entitling us to believe in the literal truth of resurrection. Why, then, this particular stricture directed at Mary Magdalene?
It makes sense when we realise that it does not concern him and some supposed fear of physical contact. It is about her and her mode of relating.
The scene has a prehistory, of course. The Church identifies Mary with the woman who, in Simon the Pharisee’s house, anointed Jesus’s feet with precious nard, then dried them with her hair. This scene, too, has fascinated artists, who draw out its extreme tactility. Mary hugs Jesus’s feet as if they were a life-raft, finding in this Man the strange satisfaction of myriad confused, painful, destructive desires. The recognition is good. Jesus does not draw back from it; he censures those who would drive the women away. 
But an attitude that may be appropriate for an initial stage of conversion and spiritual awakening can stand in the way of maturing and growth. If my relationship with Christ stays focused on my personal need, how will I come to see him as he is to adore and obey him, awakened to his call and my task?
It is to draw Mary out of herself, she who turned up in the garden so distraught, enclosed in her own grief, that Jesus addresses her with apparent brusqueness. He invites her to advance, to pass into a new stage of relation. In this situation a paradigm inheres that touches us all. If the Lord withdraws a consolation on which we have counted, if we no longer find sensible relief in a given prayer or practice, it is not necessarily a sign that we have been abandoned or are passing through a stage of inward dryness. It may instead be a positive prompt to keep moving, not to get stuck in set expectations, to follow the Lamb wherever he goes instead of childishly expecting him to come and cuddle at our feet.
‘I sought him whom my soul loves’, we read in the Song of Songs. Let us make sure we do just that and not use him as an excuse to seek our own private reassurance, be it exquisitely spiritualised. Amen.