Do not touch me? What do you mean, Do not touch me? Lord, should your Resurrection on this Easter morning keep me from you? Your feet, which I washed with my tears, dried with my hair, warmed with my lips―all the while with your blessing, your praise―am I no longer to approach them, prostrate, as before? O risen one, you whom I have searched for throughout the night and in the streets, do you reject me? Will the glory of your triumph keep us apart?

Layers

This picture provides the answer to St. Mary Magdalene’s suggested interrogation. Its composition is built up over four layers, showing respectively two figures, some plants, another couple and, finally, rocks and clouds.

The first layer simply sets the scene. The risen Christ appears to St. Mary Magdalene who has come in the early morning to embalm the body of her dead master. Jesus escapes her spontaneous embrace.

The second layer echoes their meeting by the surprising face-to-face juxtaposition of the tree and the shrub, where both plants appear as stylised reproductions of the human profiles in the foreground. Indeed, the tree with its slender trunk seems to shy to the left to avoid touching the sprawling low-lying bush, the flattened shape of which mimics the posture of Magdalene kneeling at the feet of our Lord. Yet the painter has not contented himself with a simple analogy of form between the pairs of figures and plants: by using four different elements to reinforce this reunion, he has rooted it into the centre of the composition.

Magdalene

First, the sickle-shaped path that leads down from the crest of the hill eloquently echoes the flowing shape of the back of Magdalene’s head. Second, the train of the red dress covering Mary’s feet is mirrored by the shadowed area under the bush to the right of the picture, which breaks up the brown area of the hill in the background. Third, the rock in front of the bush copies the compact mass of the pot of ointment that Magdalene grasps with her left hand. Finally, within this topographical metaphor of Magdalene’s head (defined by the path downhill), the intersection of the two straight lines delineated by the horizon and the hoe held by Jesus anchors the equivalent of the Penitent’s left eye to the flank of the hillside. Her human form thus finds a perfect echo in the layout of different landscape elements. These have been so subtly dispersed across different planes that their relationship to one another is not immediately obvious.

Tree

The tree, meanwhile, is devoid of branches on its right side; the only one that is distinguishable is broken at the fork of the trunk, as if echoing the stigmata visible on Christ’s foot. On the contrary, the left side has branches at different heights, all with abundant foliage. This contrast between the lush side of the tree under which Christ stands, and its stripped side from which Magdalene approaches, suggests a tension running from the right of the picture to the left, concentrated in the gesture of Magdalene reaching towards Jesus.

Cosmic

Thus the rural elements in this imaginary scenery are connected by the painter to convey the evangelical message. By replicating the respective shapes and postures of Christ and Mary, tree, hoe, path, bush, shadow and stone celebrate and unfold God’s divine calling to us. Anything but meaningless, those details on the contrary become profoundly readable if we only pay attention. Through these objects found to be rich in meaning, the landscape, nature itself and all of Creation are summoned forward to echo the intimate dialogue between Christ and Magdalene. This cosmic extension illustrates the universal resonance of the episode in the garden. God, through the Resurrection, invites Magdalene and all mankind to approach him on a more intimate and spiritual level, as is made explicit in the third layer of the picture.

Pastor

Here we glimpse a faint figure: no doubt that of a shepherd, since it is accompanied by a dog. They are both running down the slope which begins at the houses, hurrying towards the flock grazing in the green pasture to the left of Our Lord. The purpose of this vignette is to illustrate the exhortation of Jesus to St. Mary Magdalene, But go to my brethren, and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God. After the shepherd’s figure in the third plane of the painting, Magdalene needs to get up and, like one forced to abandon a familiar and beloved dwelling, she must give up her former manner of loving Christ. Leaving the houses behind her and moving beyond her outdated understanding of her Saviour, she will run down to the plain, towards wide open spaces, to bear witness of the Resurrection of the Lord to his disciples. There she will persuade them that―like the flock in the pasture on the left―they are no longer without a shepherd. Indeed, the Lord is risen; a Redeemer is granted them to lead all men back to God their Father.

Horizon

The final plane expresses yet further this painted evangelical message in which the scene of the shepherd hints at Magdalene’s immediate vocation as Apostola Apostolorum² and, through her, at that of every believer in the Resurrection. Here one must look from right to left. After the sturdy houses then, their ramparts hidden under the plants perched high on the right of the painting (whose perspective they close off), there suddenly appears the vast and dizzying depth of the fields to the left. This contrast entices our gaze, now attracted toward the bluish terraced landscape; an overwhelming revelation of the universe that is still left to evangelize, beyond a horizon cutting through clouds bursting with light.

Not everything will go smoothly however: the mission will often be painful, even crucifying, in order to bear fruit. Titian suggests this by stamping his painting with the massive X made up by the intersection of the trunk (prolonged by Mary’s back) and of the hoe. Whether it is Magdalene approaching Christ or our gaze peering at the horizon, wherever one wanders across the picture one is forced to pass through that cross, a mystical threshold. But our Saviour will not leave us alone within it. On the contrary, he came there first and awaits us at this gateway to salvation.

Mission

Noli me tangere―Do not touch me. Jesus conceals himself only to reveal to Mary how she can become truly his. We now better understand the profound meaning of this Noli or Do not that the divine bridegroom whispers in the ear of all those who call him with a sincere heart. He means: Everything in me burns with a desire for this embrace that you seek, and I will it fulfilled according to the overflowing grace that my Passion has purchased for you. Be therefore mine, O Mary, by offering through faith in my Resurrection the smile of your good deeds; by radiating at all times and in all places the Good News of my mercy! Become my own flesh, an infinitely precious member of my mystical body that is the Church being born, inspired by my Breath and irrigated by my blood, the sacred pigment in which is painted my Passion for you all! Such is the everlasting embrace, such is the perfect union surpassing all your aspirations, to which I henceforth invite you and all men. Therefore, to come nearer to my heart, go out and reach theirs!

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1. Jn 20:17. ↩︎
2. A title of St. Mary Magdalene meaning apostle of apostles, in which apostle stands for her, a woman, and apostles stands for Christ’s eleven apostles, all men. The title is evidenced in St. Hippolytus of Rome’s commentary on the Song of Songs (early third century), and mentioned one century later by St. Jerome; later expounded in the breviary of Prémontré: apostolorum apostola fieri meruisti, Maria Magdalene (Benedictus antiphon for the feast of the said saint.) ↩︎