From the Chaplain

Last week we celebrated the greatest feast of the Christian year, the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. This was celebrated in a special liturgy called the Triduum, which comes from a Latin word meaning ‘three days’. It begins with the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening, includes the Passion liturgy of Good Friday, the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday evening (in anticipation of Easter Sunday), and Easter Sunday, finishing with Evening Prayer. This may seem to be four days (Thursday to Sunday), but since the Jewish custom was to begin the following day the evening before, we can see that there are three full days: Thursday evening to Friday evening, Friday evening to Saturday evening, and Saturday evening to Sunday evening.

We know that Jesus rose from the dead because there were several historical events recorded in the Gospels and other documents which attest to this. First of all, there was the empty tomb, which was seen by several of the women who knew Jesus and were coming to anoint his (as they thought) dead body. The empty tomb was also seen by St Peter, and the disciple ‘whom Jesus loved’, traditionally thought to be St John. Jesus then appeared to many of his followers in the days after his resurrection. He appeared to the disciples when they were hiding in a room out of fear, he appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, which was so well recounted in a play at the School last Wednesday, he appeared to the Apostles when they went fishing as recorded in John’s Gospel, and, as St Paul recounts in his first letter to the Corinthians, at one time he appeared to over 500 people!

One very touching, and a little amusing, appearance of Jesus after his resurrection was to Mary Magdalene, which is depicted in the painting by Fra Angelico above. Mary had stayed behind to weep, since she was so distressed, after Peter and John left when they found the tomb empty. She got up enough courage to look inside the tomb and saw two angels. Even though this would have been an impressive sight, she hardly took notice of them since it was her Lord she was looking for. Then Jesus appeared to her; although, as often happened in his post-resurrection appearances, she didn’t recognise him. In fact, she thought he was the gardener! This is shown by Jesus carrying a hoe in the image above.

This representation of Jesus as a gardener is very fitting. Since the Fall of Man took place in a garden, the Garden of Eden, it was appropriate that our salvation began in a garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, as we remember on Holy Thursday evening, and finished in a garden, the garden tomb where Jesus rose from the dead and where he met Mary Magdalene, which we remember on Easter Sunday.

After this, Mary went to tell the disciples what she had seen, and so has become known as the ‘Apostle to the Apostles’, the first one to bring the Good News to those who would bring it to the whole world.

This Easter, let us give thanks to the Lord for becoming human and saving us, and to those who brought this Good News to the world, especially the Apostles, and St Mary Magdalene.

Fr Matthew Boland OP

CHAPLAIN