The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, invite us to contemplate the love in our lives that transcends our human limitations.
The reading from the Song of Songs is a dream of Love.
* [3:2] The motif of seeking/finding here and elsewhere is used by later Christian and Jewish mystics to speak of the soul’s search for the divine.
* [3:4] Whom my soul loves: the fourfold repetition of this phrase in vv. 1–4 highlights the depth of the woman’s emotion and desire. Mother’s house: cf. 8:2; a place of safety and intimacy, one which implicitly signifies approval of the lovers’ relationship. (Song of Songs, CHAPTER 3, n.d.)
The alternate reading from the Second Letter to the Corinthians declares that, through the Ministry of Reconciliation, there is a new creation.
* [5:16–17] Consequently: the death of Christ described in 2 Cor 5:14–15 produces a whole new order (2 Cor 5:17) and a new mode of perception (2 Cor 5:16). According to the flesh: the natural mode of perception, characterized as “fleshly,” is replaced by a mode of perception proper to the Spirit. Elsewhere Paul contrasts what Christ looks like according to the old criteria (weakness, powerlessness, folly, death) and according to the new (wisdom, power, life); cf. 2 Cor 5:15, 21; 1 Cor 1:17–3:3. Similarly, he describes the paradoxical nature of Christian existence, e.g., in 2 Cor 4:10–11, 14. A new creation: rabbis used this expression to describe the effect of the entrance of a proselyte or convert into Judaism or of the remission of sins on the Day of Atonement. The new order created in Christ is the new covenant (2 Cor 3:6). (2 Corinthians, CHAPTER 5, n.d.)
Psalm 63 is a prayer for comfort and assurance in God’s Presence.
* [Psalm 63] A Psalm expressing the intimate relationship between God and the worshiper. Separated from God (Ps 63:2), the psalmist longs for the divine life given in the Temple (Ps 63:3–6), which is based on a close relationship with God (Ps 63:7–9). May all my enemies be destroyed and God’s true worshipers continue in giving praise (Ps 63:10–11)! (Psalms, PSALM 63, n.d.)
In the Gospel of John, after the Resurrection of Jesus, He appears to Mary Magdalene.
* [20:11–18] This appearance to Mary is found only in John, but cf. Mt 28:8–10 and Mk 16:9–11.
* [20:16] Rabbouni: Hebrew or Aramaic for “my master.”
* [20:17] Stop holding on to me: see Mt 28:9, where the women take hold of his feet. I have not yet ascended: for John and many of the New Testament writers, the ascension in the theological sense of going to the Father to be glorified took place with the resurrection as one action. This scene in John dramatizes such an understanding, for by Easter night Jesus is glorified and can give the Spirit. Therefore his ascension takes place immediately after he has talked to Mary. In such a view, the ascension after forty days described in Acts 1:1–11 would be simply a termination of earthly appearances or, perhaps better, an introduction to the conferral of the Spirit upon the early church, modeled on Elisha’s being able to have a (double) share in the spirit of Elijah if he saw him being taken up (same verb as ascending) into heaven (2 Kgs 2:9–12). To my Father and your Father, to my God and your God: this echoes Ru 1:16: “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” The Father of Jesus will now become the Father of the disciples because, once ascended, Jesus can give them the Spirit that comes from the Father and they can be reborn as God’s children (Jn 3:5). That is why he calls them my brothers. (John, CHAPTER 20, n.d.)
Eileen Burke-Sullivan invites us to remember moments of our own grief for the loss of someone we really cared for and feel Mary’s piercing anguish. Then hear the voice of the “gardener” call her name – literally announcing her salvation.
Mary (or Eileen, Sarah, Anne, Janice . . . your name).
He speaks your name, and you know He is alive.
He speaks Mary’s name, my name, your name, and we are alive with new life, with the power to witness to others the Good News of his eternal mercy.
One invitation of today’s liturgy is to take time to hear him call your name. Go to a sacred space for you – a place of memory and hope – and allow Jesus to speak to your heart, to invite you to the labor of apostolic witness for the salvation of all the others we are sent to. Remember that the tomb is a place of hope. A place not of ghosts and hauntings but a place of call and invitation. Today, a few years after my husband’s death, I visit his grave at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery and see my own gravestone next to his. I go there both to anticipate the call to the fullness of life and to be close to those who have gone before and wait to welcome me home. May you find such consolation on this feast of renewed and renewing friendship with God. (Burke, n.d.)
Don Schwager quotes “The love of Christ enflamed her”, by Gregory the Great (540-604 AD).
"Mary Magdalene, who had been a sinner in the city (Luke 7:37), loved the Truth and so washed away with her tears the stains of wickedness (Luke 7:47). Her sins had kept her cold, but afterward she burned with an irresistible love... We must consider this woman's state of mind whose great force of love inflamed her. When even the disciples departed from the sepulcher, she did not depart. She looked for him whom she had not found... But it is not enough for a lover to have looked once, because the force of love intensifies the effort of the search. She looked for him a first time and found nothing. She persevered in seeking, and that is why she found him. As her unfulfilled desires increased, they took possession of what they found (Song of Songs 3:1-4)... Holy desires, as I have told you before, increase by delay in their fulfillment. If delay causes them to fail, they were not desires... This was Mary's kind of love as she turned a second time to the sepulcher she had already looked into. Let us see the result of her search, which had been redoubled by the power of love." (excerpt from FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 25) (Schwager, n.d.)
The Word Among Us Meditation on John 20:1-2, 11-18 encourages us on Mary’s feast day,to see how her example can help us encounter him as well. On Mary's feast day, let’s see how her example can help us encounter him as well. She waited. Mary didn’t rush off; she stayed where she was. We too need to wait on the Lord. She persisted. Mary “bent over into the tomb” (John 20:11). She kept looking for Jesus. She listened. When Jesus said her name, Mary realized who was speaking to her. She remembered. Mary Magdalene announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18). The remembrance of her encounter was eventually recorded in John’s Gospel so that all could believe.
Wait. Persist. Listen. Remember. Do this, and you too can say with Mary, “I have seen the Lord.”
“Jesus, I want to encounter you today!” (Meditation on John 20:1-2, 11-18, n.d.)
Friar Jude Winkler notes how the call of the lover in the Song of Songs is repeated by Mary Magdalene searching for Jesus. Paul declares we are new creatures and our life is consecrated in a mission of love. Friar Jude summarizes the symbology of differing numbers of women visiting the Tomb in the Gospel accounts. He reminds us of the requirement in love to allow freedom for the beloved to be and do.
Franciscan Media comments that, except for the mother of Jesus, few women are more honored in the Bible than Mary Magdalene. Yet she could well be the patron of the slandered, since there has been a persistent legend in the Church that she is the unnamed sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus in Luke 7:36-50.
Mary Magdalene has been a victim of mistaken identity for almost 20 centuries. Yet she would no doubt insist that it makes no difference. We are all sinners in need of the saving power of God, whether our sins have been lurid or not. More importantly, we are all “unofficial” witnesses of the Resurrection. (Saint Mary Magdalene, n.d.)
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares the Franciscan tradition that prioritizes putting love into concrete action while drawing on Divine Love as our Source. Over decades of serving New York City’s poorest individuals, Dorothy Day (1897–1980) never lost sight of the gospel’s challenging invitation to love.
Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may at any moment become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself “What else is the world interested in?” What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships. God is Love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. We want with all our hearts to love, to be loved. . . . It is when we love the most intensely and most humanly that we can recognize how tepid is our love for others. The keenness and intensity of love brings with it suffering, of course, but joy too because it is a foretaste of heaven. . . .
When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees Christ, His Son, in us and loves us. And so we should see Christ in others, and nothing else, and love them. There can never be enough of it. There can never be enough thinking about it. St. John of the Cross said that where there was no love, put love and you would take out love. [1] The principle certainly works. [2] . . . (Rohr, n.d.)
We are invited by the Spirit to be open to the power of love experiences that triumph in joy that transcends difficulties and suffering.
References
Burke, E. (n.d.). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/072222.html
John, CHAPTER 20. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/20?1
Meditation on John 20:1-2, 11-18. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://wau.org/meditations/2022/07/22/446805/
Psalms, PSALM 63. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/63?2
Rohr, R. (n.d.). Love Is the Only Solution. Daily Meditations Archive: 2022. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/love-is-the-only-solution-2022-07-22/
Saint Mary Magdalene. (n.d.). Franciscan Media. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-mary-magdalene
Schwager, D. (n.d.). I Have Seen the Lord! Daily Scripture net. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2022&date=jul22a
Song of Songs, CHAPTER 3. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/songofsongs/3?1
2 Corinthians, CHAPTER 5. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2corinthians/5?14
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