Mary Magdalene, says the gospel of John, stood by the Cross of Calvery with Jesus’ mother and Mary the wife of Clopas. Since the burial of Christ that evening had been hurried, Mary Magdalene, Mary Clopas and another brought spices before dawn on the following Sunday to finish the task. Much to their surprise, the stone of His tomb had been rolled away, and Jesus’ body was no longer within.
The “Madeleine” at once ran back to the Cenacle to tell Peter and John of their discovery. The two apostles hurried over, saw the empty tomb, and left puzzled. Mary herself remained sadly at the sepulchre. When she looked into the tomb, she saw an angel, who asked her why she was crying. Then Jesus himself appeared to her outside. Thinking Him to be the gardener, she asked where the body was. Then He greeted her, “Mary!” When she heard that well known voice she recognized Him. But He sent her back to tell His disciples that she had seen Him, and He was indeed risen. It has been conjectured that Our Lord first appeared to his own mother, but Mary Magdalene was the first public witness to His rising.
There are three women mentioned in the gospels who had a very special rapport with Jesus. One is the sinful woman of Galiee who washed His feet with her tears and anointed Him with perfume. A second is Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who loved to hear Him talk, and also anointed His head and feet during His last visit to Bethany. The third is Mary of Magdala, one of those who accompanied the apostles and served them. Since she is at one point described as one from whom Jesus expelled seven devils, many Christians have thought that she was the nameless sinful woman, and Mary of Bethany, too.
When the Catholic Church revised the Missal in 1969, the wiser view was adopted that Mary Magdalene was separate from the sinning woman and Mary of Bethany. Now her feast recognizes only the woman from Magdala. The collect of her Mass says, “Father, your Son first entrusted to Mary Magdalene the joyful news of His resurrection…” In the north window of the church of St. Thomas the Apostle [in Irondequoit NY] , she and St. Thomas the Doubter are represented flanking the Risen Christ. Both were primary witnesses of His resurrection: Mary Magdalene to whom He first lovingly disclosed Himself; Thomas, the skeptic turned rapturous believer: “My Lord and my God.”
The perhaps natural confusion of the three devoted women was further complicated by divergent legends of what later became of the Magdalene. The Eastern Church said, rather plausibly, that she had gone to Ephesus to live, when St. John took Our Lady there to live with him. The Western Church, or at least the French Church, cherished the story that Mary of Magdalene-Bethany set sail with her brother Lazarus, her sister Martha, and other Christian friends, in a boat without oars, which carried them to the coast of southern France. There they became the first spokesmen of Christianity. In her last years, says the tale, Mary lived as a hermitess in an Alpine cave. Her body was eventually enshrined in the church of Ste. Madeline, Vezelay, France. However ancient and popular in France, this narrative is now considered to be without foundation.
The Mary we venerate, then, on July 22, is that fortunate, affectionate person whom Jesus rewarded by commissioning her to be the first to announce to the world the Good News of His rising. The Church puts on her lips today the words of St. Paul: “He died for all so that those live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sakes died and was raised up.”
[Pope Francis elevated the memory of Mary Magdalene to the status of a Feast on July 22nd, 2016 in order to stress the importance of this faithful disciple of Christ.]. --Father Robert F. McNamara
Scripture:Song of Songs 3:1-4
The bride says this:
On my bed, at night, I sought him
whom my heart loves.
I sought but did not find him.
So I will rise and go through the City;
in the streets and in the squares
I will seek him whom my heart loves.
I sought but did not find him.
The watchmen came upon me
on their rounds in the City:
‘Have you seen him whom my heart loves?’
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found him whom my heart loves.
Writings
(Year C) Today we meet the one who, according to the Gospels, was the first to see the Risen Christ: Mary Magdalene. The Sabbath had ended not long before. On the day of the Passion, there had not been enough time to complete the funeral rites. For this reason, at that sorrow-filled dawn, the women went to Jesus’ tomb with aromatic oils. The first to arrive was Mary Magdalene. She was one of the disciples who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee, putting herself at the service of the burgeoning Church. Her walk to the sepulcher mirrors the fidelity of many women who spend years in the small alleyways of cemeteries remembering someone who is no longer there. The most authentic bonds are not broken even in death: there are those who continue loving even if their loved one is gone forever. The Gospel describes Magdalene by immediately highlighting that she was not a woman easily given to enthusiasm (cf. Jn 20:1-2, 11-18). In fact, after her visit to the sepulcher, she returns disappointed to the Apostles’ hiding place. She tells them that the stone has been removed from the entrance to the sepulcher, and her first hypothesis is the simplest that one could formulate: someone must have stolen Jesus’ body. Thus, the first announcement that Mary makes is not the one of the Resurrection, but of a theft perpetrated by persons unknown while all Jerusalem slept. The Gospels then tell of Magdalene’s second visit to Jesus’ sepulcher. She was stubborn! She went, she returned ... because she was not convinced! This time her step is slow and very heavy. Mary suffers twice as much: first for the death of Jesus, and then for the inexplicable disappearance of his body. It is as she is stooping near the tomb, her eyes filled with tears, that God surprises her in the most unexpected way. John the Evangelist stresses how persistent her blindness is. She does not notice the presence of the two angels who question her, and she does not become suspicious even when she sees the man behind her, whom she believes is the custodian of the garden. Instead, she discovers the most overwhelming event in the history of mankind when she is finally called by her name: “Mary!” (v. 16). How nice it is to think that the first apparition of the Risen One — according to the Gospels — took place in such a personal way! To think that there is someone who knows us, who sees our suffering and disappointment, who is moved with us and calls us by name. It is a law which we find engraved on many pages of the Gospel. There are many people around Jesus who search for God, but the most prodigious reality is that, long before that, in the first place there is God, who is concerned about our life, who wants to raise it, and to do this, he calls us by name, recognizing the individual face of each person. Each person is a love story that God writes on this earth. Each one of us is God’s love story. He calls each of us by our name: he knows us by name; he looks at us; he waits for us; he forgives us; he is patient with us. Is this true or not true? Each of us experiences this. And Jesus calls her: “Mary!”: the revolution of her life, the revolution destined to transform the life of every man and every woman begins with a name which echoes in the garden of the empty sepulcher. The Gospels describe Mary’s happiness. Jesus’ Resurrection is not a joy which is measured with a dropper, but a waterfall that cascades over life. Christian life is not woven of soft joys, but of waves which engulf everything. You too, try to imagine, right now, with the baggage of disappointments and failures that each of us carries in our heart, that there is a God close to us who calls us by name and says to us: ‘Rise, stop weeping, for I have come to free you!”. This is beautiful. Jesus is not one who adapts to the world, tolerating in it the persistence of death, sadness, hatred, the moral destruction of people.... Our God is not inert, but our God — allow me to say — is a dreamer: he dreams of the transformation of the world, and accomplished it in the mystery of the Resurrection. Mary would like to embrace her Lord, but he is already oriented towards the heavenly Father, whereas she is sent to carry the news to the brethren. And so that woman, who, before encountering Jesus, had been at the mercy of evil (cf. Lk 8:2) now becomes the Apostle of the new and greatest hope. May her intercession also help us live this experience: in times of woe and in times of abandonment, to listen to the Risen Jesus who calls us by name and, with a heart full of joy, to go forth and proclaim: “I have seen the Lord!” (v. 18). I have changed my life because I have seen the Lord! I am now different than before. I am another person. I have changed because I have seen the Lord. This is our strength and this is our hope. (Pope Francis)
Musical Selection
I found my Beloved, in the mountains On the lonely and far and distant isles; Over resounding waters, I hear the whispering Of love's breezes, to heal my heart. Oh tranquil evening, silent music; And the sounding solitude, of the rising dawn; It is there that I hear You, there that I taste of You In love's banquet, to fill my heart. And I found Your footprints in the sand, by the sea; And like Your maiden, I ran along the way To a secret chamber... And there You gave to me, there You taught me, oh so well And I drank of Your sweet spiced wine, the wine of God. And there I gave to You, keeping nothing for myself There I promised You, forever, to be Your bride. And I found Your footprints, in the sand, by the sea And like Your maiden, I ran along the way To a secret chamber... So, I have abandoned, all I ever sought to be; And in dying, my spirit has been released.
Collect
Almighty God, whose Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of mind and body and called her to be a witness to his resurrection: forgive our sins and heal us by your grace, that we may serve you in the power of his risen life; who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, now and for ever. Amen.(English Missal)
