Thirsting for God like St. Mary Magdalene, Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, July 22, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene
July 22, 2020
Songs 3:1-4, Ps 63, Jn 20:1-2.11-18

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today we celebrate one of the greatest saints who has ever lived, the woman who, after the Blessed Virgin, is mentioned most in the Gospels: St. Mary Magdalene. And we celebrate her in a special way, as a liturgical feast, decreed so by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments four years ago, at the express will of Pope Francis. In the Decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, it gave three reasons for this liturgical upgrade: St. Mary Magdalene is a witness of the transforming power of Divine Mercy, a model of the indispensable service and dignity of women in the Church, and an epitome of evangelization. These three focuses are very helpful because St. Mary Magdalene’s reputation has suffered from a lot of confusion over the course of time. It suffered first from the crazy writings of the gnostic pseudo-gospels in the centuries after Christ, silliness historically debunked but recently resuscitated by Dan Brown and neo-gnostics, all positing Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ girlfriend or wife. The second is from being confused and conflated by St. Gregory the Great and some others with two other women in the Gospels: the anonymous sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet in Simon the Pharisees’ house as a sign of repentance and plea for mercy; and Mary of Bethany who sits at his feet and later anoints them with precious nard in the home she shared with her siblings Martha and Lazarus. St. Mary Magdalene’s life, however, is so rich on its own without fantasy or conflation. Today we can ponder the three points from the Decree that we know for certain and what that means for our living our Christian life well.
• First, she experienced Christ’s compassion and mercy. St. Luke and St. Mark tell us that she had had seven demons cast out from her. She had in some way been under the hold of the devil. Some saints throughout the centuries said that these seven demons may have been the seven deadly sins. Regardless of what their manifestation was, she had experienced the healing power of the Lord. In order to relate appropriately to the Lord, we, too, need to relate to him in his saving mercy. Prior to the papacy, Pope Francis in the Book length interview El Jesuita said that it’s only great sinners forgiven by the Lord who have the experience of who they really are and how much they’re love. Mary Magdalene had that grace. She knew she had been saved and healed. And that’s an experience all of us should begin with if we’re going to imitate the saint we fête today.
• Second, St. Mary Magdalene shows us the dignity of women in God’s plan of salvation, caring for the Lord and the Church, sharing in his mission, hearing his teaching, seeing his deeds. St. Luke tells us that, after having received Christ’s mercy, she was one of several women “who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities” who faithfully accompanied Jesus and the apostles during his journeys and “provided for them out of their resources” (Lk 8:2-3). This was not a group of bored do-gooders who figured that these wandering 13 men would be lost without their spiritual and practical maternity. No, each of them had received from Jesus a physical healing, a spiritual healing, or both, and in gratitude wanted to give Jesus and his mission all the love, time and material support they could. And St. Mary Magdalene particularly excelled in this care, even when others failed. The evangelists all tell us that when almost all of Jesus’ disciples abandoned him, St. Mary Magdalene was faithful with him to the end, standing at the foot of the Cross together with the Blessed Mother, with Mary the wife of Clopas, with Salome and with St. John. She remained indomitably faithful with feminine courage at the most difficult moments of discipleship. She helped Mary and Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus’ body down and prepare it for burial. She returned after the Sabbath to anoint his body. Her care for Christ and his mission is a model for every disciple: she loved Jesus, whose mercy transformed her life, and consecrated her life to him and his redeeming work.
• Third, St. Mary Magdalene shows us the joy of the resurrection and how to share the Good News of the Resurrection with others. We see in the Gospel of today’s Mass that early on Easter morning, the first moment she could after the end of the Sabbath, she came to the tomb in order to anoint Jesus’ dead body. She was seeking him. She was lost without his guidance. When she didn’t find his body, she ran to SS. Peter and John and said, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” When she returned a short time later, she wept at his absence. When the angels in the tomb asked why she was crying, she replied, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When blinded by grief and the change in the Lord’s risen appearance, she mistook Jesus for a gardener when he, too, asked her the reason for her tears, she said, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” She sought the Lord so much that she wanted to be with him even if it would just be his corpse. That’s when Jesus revealed himself to her, calling her by name. Her love for the Lord Jesus is shown in the Song of Songs and in the Psalm for this Mass. “I sought him whom my heart loves– I sought him but I did not find him,” we hear in the first reading. “The watchmen came upon me, as they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen him whom my heart loves? I had hardly left them when I found him whom my heart loves.” Her whole life was characterized by the words of the Psalm: “O God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.” Her example is one that inspires us to seek the Lord with the same Passion. And when we do our joy is overwhelming. At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus commissions our saint, “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” She was the first person to whom the Risen Lord Jesus appeared and she was sent as the first witness of the Resurrection to the apostles who were hovering in the Upper Room. Jesus commissioned Mary to be the apostolorum apostola, as St. Thomas Aquinas called her, the apostle of — or better to — the apostles, the one sent to those who would be sent to bring the good news of great joy of Jesus’ resurrection to the entire world. Mary went to them and announced simply, “I have seen the Lord!” and then reported to them what Jesus had told her. Likewise, all of us, having longed for the Lord, having longed for triumph over sin and death, are called by Christ to share with others joyfully the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. At the beginning of Mass today, we turned to God the Father, praised him because his “only begotten Son entrusted Mary Magdalene before all others with announcing the great joy of the Resurrection,” and then asked, “grant that through her intercession and example we may proclaim the living Christ and come to see him reigning in your glory.” God wants all of us to proclaim the “living Christ,” to announce that Christ is alive, that, like Mary Magdalene, “I have seen him,” but also, “I have heard him speaking to me in prayer and the Word of God,” and “I have even received him risen from the dead inside me in Holy Communion!” St. Mary Magdalene teaches us is how to spread this good news, the greatest gift we could give to others.
• All three of these lessons that we learn from St. Mary Magdalene find their culmination in the Mass. It’s here at the beginning that we cry out, “Lord have mercy!” and “I have greatly sinned,” opening ourselves up to God’s forgiveness as we listen to him speaking to us live in the Gospel. It’s here that we associate ourselves in his work, giving ourselves and our resources at the offertory as we unite our sacrifices to those of Christ to be presented to the Father. It’s here that we long for him and have a chance to meet him risen from the dead under the appearances of sacramental signs. It’s from here that he sends us to announce to the whole world his resurrection. When the Vatican decreed this feast, they prepared a proper preface, which summarizes St. Mary Magdalene’s life and turns it the prayer the whole Church makes as we prepare to meet the same Jesus whom she so loved. It’s entitled “About the Apostle of the Apostles” and the Church prays in unison: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, that in all things we proclaim you, Almighty Father, whose mercy is no less than his power, through Christ our Lord. He appeared in the garden and revealed himself to Mary Magdalene, who had loved him in life, witnessed him dying on the Cross, sought him as he lay in the tomb, and was the first to adore him, newly risen from the dead. He honored her with the office of being an apostle to the Apostles, so that the good news of new life might reach the ends of the earth.”  Indeed, as we celebrate St. Mary Magdalene, we celebrate that Mercy that is at the root of the “good news of new life,” the proclamation of which, she commenced in her mission to the Apostles, they advanced in life and death, and now we seek to continue to the ends of the earth.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download