He is Risen, Alleluia!!

Excerpts from: Our Lady's Easter

by Albert H. Dolan, O. Carm.

"Regina coeli laetare," the Church sings at Easter; "Rejoice, O Queen of Heaven, because He is risen as He said." Indeed, there is no Easter meditation more consoling, more uplifting and more rich in grace than reflection upon Our Lord's appearance to His Blessed Mother early Easter morning.

This visit is not recorded in the Gospels but is attested by a definite and ancient tradition; by the Fathers, by spiritual writers without exception, and by the faithful who are as certain of it as they are of His appearance to Magdalene and to the Apostles.

We need not dwell long on the fitness of such an apparition. Even if we had no evidence, from tradition, of their meeting, our hearts would tell us that Our Lord would not cruelly neglect His Mother; that if He appeared to the Apostles and to Magdalene, He would surely appear first to her, the companion of His passion, to her who had the strongest claims upon Him, to her in whose heart there was incomparably more faith and loyalty and love for Him than in any other human heart. To Mary's eyes first was His victory to be proclaimed. The fitness of the visit being assumed, let us inquire where and when it occurred and what was in their hearts at their reunion.

After the burial of Our Lord, Mary had been conducted by St. John, the beloved disciple, to the home of one of his friends in Jerusalem. According to tradition, Mary spent Good Friday night, Holy Saturday, and Holy Saturday night in her room in this house in solitary, expectant prayer, filled with faith and hope which approached certainty, a faith which was as strong before as it was after she saw Him risen.

Let us visit Mary just before dawn on Easter Sunday morning. Counting from noon on Good Friday, she is completing her fortieth consecutive hour of lonely prayer. With eyes closed, she kneels in humble supplication, patiently begging God the Father to hasten the hour of the coming of His Son and hers. Although she does not know it yet, her dolors are over; her hours of suffering have passed. The dawn has not yet broken, but it is at hand and will soon break with a splendor the earth has never seen before or since.

Leaving Mary now in the darkness of her room, let us journey in imagination to the tomb of Our Lord. Without, the soldiers are sleeping; within, by His power as God, His soul enters and reassumes His Body. Instantaneously, even while the angels are rolling back the stone from the sepulcher, He is on His way to Mary, for we are not to think that He was less eager than she was for their reunion. Both had traversed such vast mysteries since He had seen her with His bodily eyes that He hastened towards her, as if long years instead of days had intervened since their parting. He longed for her presence.

Let us return to Mary just before His appearance. New graces are just being bestowed upon her – graces to strengthen her to bear the joy of the sight of her glorified Son, for these new graces and powers are necessary, lest joy should crush the Immaculate Heart that sorrow could not break. Just as these graces enter her soul and just as the first faint streaks of dawn brighten the hilltops, a dazzling brilliance fills her room and startles her closed eyelids into opening, and being open, they behold standing before her – her risen Son. The Queen of Sorrow raises her eyes and becomes the Queen of Joy. No other human being has ever seen a sight so glorious; to no other on earth was so much of His Divinity and glory disclosed.

What does she see in Him? Oh, first of all love, love for her greater and more tender than His eyes had ever beamed upon her before. His joy as well as His divinity causes this new brightness in Him. And what is the cause of His joy? Mary – as she is the "cause of our joy." He rejoices at the sight of Mary; He delights in her sweet sanctity; He recognizes again her resemblance to Him, as He exults in her delight at seeing Him. As God and as Man, He rejoices in His pride in her, His Mother, the Mother of His Body; and in His pride in her, His creation, the first and fairest of His creatures. He rejoices in the fresh beauty He sees in her, a new beauty created by her dolors and shining not only from her soul but from her now transfigured countenance.

Did they speak? Not, I think, at first. If there ever was an occasion in which words were needless, it is this; and they remain speechless while they read the messages so plainly written in each other's eyes. Then finally, of course, He speaks, for she is not to be deprived of the joy of His voice, and it is her holy name He pronounces. And in answer, there is heard her voice, and it is His Holy Name she whispers. It is her only word, but what a world of love it contains! As she speaks His Name, she throws herself at His feet in loving adoration and in adoring love. Then He gently raises her and embraces her, pressing her head tenderly against His wounded side. Who will be so bold as to guess how long He kept her there and what He said to her, or how soon and how often He promised to come to her again? We will not be so rash as to speculate further, but in the sight of Jesus and Mary, Mother and Son, re-united in love and joy on Easter morning, we see the end, the termination, the goal of our own earthly trials. If we bear our trials as they (Jesus and Mary) bore them, if we suffer with them and for them, we shall one day have our Easter, wrapped in closest union with them both, in love and in joy which will endure not merely for an hour but for all eternity.

These thoughts, almost heart-breaking in the spiritual joy they invoke, these thoughts of the union of Mary and Jesus, their mutual love and their mutual gladness, are not for Easter alone; rather are they for reflection each time we say the first Glorious Mystery of the Rosary, reminding ourselves always that to suffer with them is to rejoice with them. To endure our Good Friday with them is to spend our eternal Easter with them, united to them forever in unspeakable love and glory and joy and gladness.