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| Rosa 'Mary Magdalene' It fades into a virginal white with age. Scan -Alex Waterhouse-Hayward |
"Touch me not for I am a teapot." Dolores Reyes de Irureta Goyena
Noli me tangere is the Latin version of a phrase spoken,
according to John 20:17, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him
after his resurrection.
A loose translation into English would be "don't
cling to me or "don't touch me." The original Koine Greek phrase, Μή μου ἅπτου (mē mou haptou), is better represented in
translation as "cease holding on to me" or "stop clinging to
me", i.e. an ongoing action, not one done in a single moment.
The biblical scene of Mary Magdalene's recognizing Jesus
Christ after his resurrection became the subject of a long, widespread and
continuous iconographic tradition in Christian art from Late Antiquity to the
present. Pablo Picasso, for example, used the painting Noli me tangere by
Antonio da Correggio, stored in the Museo del Prado, as an iconographic source
for his famous painting La Vie (Cleveland Museum of Art) from the so-called
Blue Period.
Wikipedia
As a little boy I heard “Noli me tangere” a lot from my grandmother Dolores's lips in
relation to a 19th century Philippine patriot’s (José Rizal) novel by
that name (published in 1887). It was about the inequities of the Spanish
colonizers and Roman Catholic clergy. It was published in Spanish. The book has
vanished (I have no idea when it disappeared) from my library.
For me Easter is a time of reflection. While Time may
have told us that God Is Dead (in the last century) it is difficult to erase
(modern digital term re-format?) from my mind the years of a Roman Catholic
upbringing plus a four year education at St. Edward’s High School in Austin.
Thanks to Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. who taught our class not religion but
theology (what did we know? ) I am able to explain all the intricacies of
Church Doctrine.
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| Noli me tangere - Corregio |
This time of reflection which is tinged by the memory of
my grandmother calling me in (around 1 in the afternoon) when I was playing in
the street. I was to kneel with my
mother as she read the last 7 Words of Christ. And of course there was no music
to be played in our radio that whole day.
A bit of mirth was allowed on the next day Sábado de
Gloria.
As I reflect on Easter during Easter one of my thoughts
is about taking Rebecca, my then 8-year-old granddaughter to the lovely church
of La Valenciana in Guanajuato, Mexico. Upon entering the the church on the
left side was a very large baroque style painting that featured Christ and a
crowd. Smack in the middle was a very blond, long-haired woman. I explained to
Rebecca that the woman was Mary Madgalene about to be stoned for being an
adulteress.
Brother Edwin had explained to us that this scene is the
only one described in the bible where Christ is known (perhaps) to have
written. He writes or makes some signs on the ground and the crowd disperses.
It would seem that Christ has written some of the sins of those present.
And Mary Magdalene leads to my often re-read in Spanish
of José Saramago’s El Evangelio Según Jesucristo. In this novel Mary Magdalene
brings in an exhausted and sore Christ into her house. She cares for him an
ultimately teaches the man the ways of a man in her bed. Such was the scandal
of this novel in Portugal that Saramago left for the Canary Islands. When he
won the Nobel his country tried to woo him back.
I believe (in 100% of the meaning of that word) that to
think of these events (be they true or not) they are good for the soul even
though they might bring some melancholy hours and insomnia on a Sábado de
Gloria.
He suspects the woman is a prostitute, not because he is particularly good at guessing people's professions at first glance, besides, not that long ago he himself would have been identified as a shepherd by the smell of goat, yet now everyone would say, He's a fisherman, for he lost one smell only to replace it with another. The woman reeks of perfume, but Jesus, who may be innocent, has learned certain facts of life by watching the mating of goats and rams, he also has enough common sense to know that just because a woman uses perfume, it does not necessarily mean she is a whore.
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
José Saramago translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero
He suspects the woman is a prostitute, not because he is particularly good at guessing people's professions at first glance, besides, not that long ago he himself would have been identified as a shepherd by the smell of goat, yet now everyone would say, He's a fisherman, for he lost one smell only to replace it with another. The woman reeks of perfume, but Jesus, who may be innocent, has learned certain facts of life by watching the mating of goats and rams, he also has enough common sense to know that just because a woman uses perfume, it does not necessarily mean she is a whore.
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
José Saramago translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero