John 20:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet the angels say nothing to her about the Resurrection. She is led up to this doctrine little by little.

She sees faces brighter than ordinary. She sees shining garments. She hears a voice of sympathy, for the angels say to her: "Woman, why are you weeping?"

Through all this, as through an opened door, she was little by little brought to the word about the Resurrection.

The very manner in which the angels sat disposed her to inquire. It was clear from it that they knew what had happened, and therefore they were not sitting together, but apart from one another.

Yet it was unlikely that she would immediately dare to ask. Therefore, both by their question and by the manner of their sitting, they disposed her toward conversation.

And they say to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” The words “Why are you weeping?” are full of sincere compassion. Lest Mary, as a woman, be troubled, they quiet her distress by this question. They ask with such sympathy and meekness, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She says to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” With fervor and love she answers, “They have taken away my Lord, and that is why I weep. I do not know where they have moved Him. I would go there and anoint His body, and in this at least I would find some consolation.”

They did not, of course, wish to learn the reason for her tears. They knew it, even if the woman had said nothing, and the matter itself showed it plainly.

Rather, they urge her to cease her tears, since she had resolved to weep at an unfitting time and over what was least fitting.

Death had been destroyed, and corruption had already ceased. For this reason our Savior Christ rose and renewed for the dead the ascent into incorruption and life.

Why then, woman, they say, do you act contrary to the time and grieve so greatly, when the outcome of events calls for the opposite?

Rather, it is truly fitting to rejoice and be of good courage. Why then do you weep, in some way disturbing the appearance proper to the feast?

Mary calls the Lord's lifeless body her Lord, taking the part for the whole. So all of us confess that Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, our Lord, is at one and the same time Word, soul, and flesh.

We confess that He was crucified and buried, although only His flesh was buried.

The angels halted her tears. What else did they announce by this, if not the coming joy? For they said, "Why are you weeping?" as though saying, "Do not weep."

But she began to tell the cause of her tears, thinking that they had asked because they did not know it.

"They have taken away my Lord," she said, calling the lifeless body of her Lord her Lord, indicating the part by the whole.

“And they said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?” Since Mary did not dare question the Angels, they themselves speak to her. “She said to them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” She supposed that the body of Jesus Christ had been moved elsewhere by those who had buried Him.

This was foretold in the Song of Songs: “On my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but found him not” (Song 3:1). And of those who found Him and would not let Him go, it is said in the same book, “I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go” (Song 3:4).

The angels ask Mary, saying: "Woman, why are you weeping?" She says to them: "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him."

For the very sacred conversations that produce tears of love in us also dry those same tears when they promise us the vision of our Redeemer.

But according to the history, it must be noted that the woman does not say, "They have taken away the body of my Lord," but "They have taken away my Lord."

For the usage of sacred language is such that it sometimes denotes the part by the whole, and sometimes the whole by the part.

It denotes the whole by the part when it is written of the sons of Jacob: "All the souls of the house of Jacob who came with Jacob into Egypt were seventy-five" (Gen 46:27).

The All-seeing One saw Mary Magdalene overcome by weeping and exhausted by anguish. Then He had compassion and appeared, saying to the maiden, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek in the tomb?” Then Mary turned and said, “I weep because they have taken my Lord from the tomb, and I do not know where they have laid Him. Surely this is your doing, for, if I am not mistaken, You are the gardener. Yet if You have taken the body, tell me, and I will take my Redeemer, who is my Teacher and my Lord, He who grants resurrection to the fallen.”

"And they said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?'" You see heaven in this cave, or better, a heavenly temple raised up in place of an earthly tomb and prison.

It is filled, instead of earthly guards, with heavenly angels. They have the great honor of guarding the tomb of the Life-giving God, and joyfully cherish it now that it is empty.

And you, O woman, why are you weeping? They ask not from ignorance of her condition, but in order to restrain her anguish.

They wished to make her capable of receiving them and to prepare a favorable ground for the fulfillment of their work. The work of the angels sitting at the tomb of the Life-giver was to proclaim the glory of the Risen One.

But to the angels' question about the cause of her weeping, she answers: "Because they have taken away my Lord..."

To the angel's question, "Woman, why are you weeping?" she answered with sobbing and despair: "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him!"

This cry of a tormented heart intensified her sobbing. Tears began to choke her. She turned away from the entrance of the cave, involuntarily looked back, and saw Jesus standing before her, but did not recognize Him.

Jesus says to her: "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Just as the apostles, even the chosen among the apostles, did not understand that Jesus had to die and rise again, so Mary did not understand.

Meanwhile Mary Magdalene, whose faith showed Peter's impatience, did not trust what she herself had seen and heard during the first visit to the tomb with the other women. Now she ran alone to look once more at the tomb with her own eyes.

The rising sun had already begun to spread golden rays over the summits of the surrounding mountains. A beautiful spring day was beginning in nature. But Mary's soul was gloomy.

Having carefully examined the cave and the tomb, and finding there no explanation for her perplexities, she stood by the tomb and wept.

"Woman, why are you weeping?" a voice suddenly sounded. Startled, she again bent down toward the cave and saw two young men in white garments.

“Why are you weeping?” They ask not in order to learn, but in order to console. “They have taken away my Lord,” and so forth. She answers the heavenly messengers as simply as though speaking with earthly beings. So deeply is she immersed in one thought. This thought allows no other thought, no other supposition, into her sorrowing soul about where the body of the Lord could have gone. She repeats only one thing: they have taken Him away.