WHEN the women find Jesus’ tomb empty, Mary Magdalene runs off to tell Peter and John.

By this time, Mary has found Peter and John, and she reports to them: “They have taken away the Lord out of the memorial tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Mary Magdalene, who remains behind at the tomb, is overcome by grief. Where could Jesus be? Stooping forward to look into the tomb, she sees the two angels in white, who have reappeared! One is sitting at the head and the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been lying. “Woman, why are you weeping?” they ask.

“They have taken my Lord away,” Mary answers, “and I do not know where they have laid him.” Then she turns around and sees someone who repeats the question: “Woman, why are you weeping?” And this one also asks: “Whom are you looking for?”

Imagining this person to be the caretaker of the garden in which the tomb is situated, she says to him: “Sir, if you have carried him off, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

“Mary!” the person says. And immediately she knows, by the familiar way he speaks to her, that it is Jesus. “Rab·boʹni!” (meaning “Teacher!”) she exclaims. And with unbounded joy, she grabs hold of him. But Jesus says: “Stop clinging to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. But be on your way to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.’”

Mary now runs to where the apostles and fellow disciples have gathered. She adds her account to the report that the other women have already given about seeing the resurrected Jesus.