Joseph Mussomeli
Evening of the First Day
“Where have you been?” she asked. Magdala looked back at her in sullen silence.
She repeated: “Where have you been, Magda? We have been worried that something had happened to you.”
Still no answer. Magdala silently looked about the inner courtyard where the other two were also keeping their vigil of sorrow and hope. Magdala too was full of sorrow and hope, but it was a malignant sorrow and her hope was an ugly, twisted thing. She nursed her hope from a deep wellspring of hatred. She hoped for death. Hope that the Romans would die; hope that the high priests and their lackeys would die. Hope that his friends—so-called friends—would die, and that their deaths would be slow and painful. But mostly she hoped for her own death. Fast or slow, she didn’t really care and didn’t dwell too much on the mechanics of the dying, as long as it just got done. But if her own dying was too much to ask, then the death of everyone else would suffice.
Magdala gestured toward Mary, the dead man’s mother, who was sitting near the hearth and finally spoke: “Did she tell you how he died? Did she describe it for you?”
“Magda, please, stop this.”
“Stop what? Stop seeing those images in my mind? Stop seeing that look of betrayal on his face? Stop smelling the reek of blood and sweat and excrement? Stop hearing him groan in pain? Stop wondering how such a gentle soul could be treated like that? What exactly, Miriam, do you want me to stop? I would rip out my eyes and cut off my ears if I could unsee and unhear these things!”
Miriam knew not to confront her too directly at times like this. There was no point in trying to reason with her.  » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/04/easter-story-three-apostles-joseph-mussomeli.html