Living Learning and Love

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, invite us to contemplate the power of love to make visible in our material life the mystical Presence of Love Incarnate.

Love and Life

The Reading from the Song of Songs presents the deep emotional love connected to Loss and Discovery.

* [3:1–5] See the parallel in 5:2–8.

* [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 | USCCB, n.d.)

The Reading from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians presents our life as a new creation.

* [5:14–15] These verses echo 2 Cor 4:14 and resume the treatment of “life despite death” from 2 Cor 4:7–5:10.

* [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 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 63 expresses the intimate relationship between God and the worshiper.

* [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)!

* [63:4] For your love is better than life: only here in the Old Testament is anything prized above life—in this case God’s love. (Psalm 63, PSALMS | USCCB, n.d.)

The Gospel of John presents The Empty Tomb and The Appearance to Mary of Magdala.

* [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 | USCCB, n.d.)

Kathy Kemler asks How does the resurrected Jesus call you?  What is the name (method/manner) that He speaks to you in that you immediately recognize it as the voice of God? And how do you remain open so that you may understand and respond with the awareness that he is “Teacher”. 

This part of today’s Gospel touched me because sometimes I too don’t recognize Jesus in the moment, or in a situation. And somehow as if in the gentle calling of my name he brings my awareness to, “that which is”.  Recently I was struggling with a situation that had occurred. I was “underwater” as I would call it, distressed about the situation, fumbling around and living in the muck, in the darkness.  One morning during this floundering, I was reading a devotional reflection and suddenly, it was as if Jesus called me by name and shined a bright light of awareness onto my situation, my internal disposition.  He was calling to my attention to, “what is”.  I had been focused on begrudging the situation rather than embracing and accepting the reality of the situation and what I could learn from it. It was if he called my name to bring to my attention the opportunity to learn, grow, and be transformed through the situation.  I too could have spoken in that moment, “Teacher” because I had a great sense of learning and understanding of myself. (Kemler, 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.)

Friar Jude Winkler reflects on some of the many connections in the Scriptures today that are not immediately obvious in the texts. The Second Letter to the Corinthians reminds us that we are not to judge according to the flesh. All people are to be treated as God’s children. Others are the new creation in love, too. In the Gospel of John Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb on the first day at about dawn when the disk of the sun is not yet visible. Friar Jude explains the connection of “the Morning Star, Venus, the Goddess of love. He notes the different number of people who go to the tomb in the Gospel accounts. Mary Magdalene represents the Church looking for her beloved. Hebrew Law required two to give witness and the requirement was met by the two angels. Mary Magdalene is “the apostle to the apostles” (apostle :one who gives witness to the resurrection). As in the Song of Songs, Mary Magdalene is searching compelled by love and Jesus is not recognized in His Resurrected Body but by His calling her name. Friar Jude notes that this is one of three episodes in the Gospel where He is not immediately recognized. Our resurrected body will not be the same but changed. When Jesus calls Mary’s name, we learn “the sheep recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd”. Friar Jude observes the instruction of Jesus not to embrace the Glorified Body and challenges us to ask ourselves when we try to cling, is it love or control?

The Word Among Us Meditation on the Song of Songs 3:1-4 comments that After Jesus’ death, when most of the other disciples hid in fear, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb as soon as she could. And while she may have been afraid, something compelled her to go find him. The love that had transformed her life propelled her to follow Jesus even into the most uncomfortable, dangerous places. As a result, she became the first witness to the risen Christ and the first one to proclaim, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18)!

You may not have experienced anything quite as dramatic as having seven demons cast out of you, but perhaps you can think of some sin that used to keep you bound that you no longer struggle with. Or perhaps your life was headed in one direction and took a very different turn after you met Jesus. Praise God for all those miracles! And if there’s a part of you that needs more of his love and power, invite him in. Let him keep transforming you.

“Jesus, you are the One whom my heart loves.” (Meditation on the Song of Songs 3:1-4, n.d.)

Father Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown (1953–2025) who reflects on the legacy of Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman (1899–1981) and the wisdom he continues to offer us today. The interfaith minister and author Liza J. Rankow describes Thurman’s work and witness.

There is a stereotype of mystics seeking to escape the world, concerned only with the ecstasy of their own experience of union with the Divine; yet in that union is a doorway that opens out into everything and everyone. The experience of oneness brings us back into relationship with the allness. The oneness and the allness inter-be…. Thus we feel deeply the wounds of a battered world, and the suffering and the needs of the people—including, as Thurman puts it in Jesus and the Disinherited, those “with their backs against the wall”—the disenfranchised, the marginalized and the oppressed. Inaction is not an option. The mystic worldview creates an ethical mandate, and it offers a new way to enter the world of social transformation—from the position of oneness rather than dualism. It shifts the paradigm…. Thurman often quoted social union leader Eugene Debs: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” [3]

Thurman spoke of spiritual disciplines as those practices by which we remove the barriers to our “inner altar”—our place of communion with God. And through this definition, he included activism as a spiritual discipline…. He affirmed the necessity to identify with, and work for the liberation and reconciliation of all parties in order to restore beloved community. [4] (Rohr, n.d.)

We contemplate the events in our lives when the Spirit reveals that we have been “called by name” to understand relationships in a new Way that reveals our growth through Love. 

References

John, CHAPTER 20 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/20? 

Kemler, K. (n.d.). Daily Reflections. Daily Reflections. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/daily-reflections/daily-reflection-july-22-2026 

Meditation on the Song of Songs 3:1-4. (n.d.). Word Among Us. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://wau.org/meditations/2026/07/22/1628315/ 

Psalm 63, PSALMS | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/63?2 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). Howard Thurman: A Worldview of Oneness. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/howard-thurman-a-worldview-of-oneness/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). I Have Seen the Lord! Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/ 

Song of Songs, CHAPTER 3 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/songofsongs/3? 

2 Corinthians, CHAPTER 5 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved July 22, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2corinthians/5?14 

Recognize Jesus in Joy

 The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, Tuesday of the Easter Octave, exhorts us to accept the change of attitude that is presented to us in Jesus Resurrection.

The Word of Easter Joy

In the Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Luke presents baptism as the expected response to the apostolic preaching.

* [2:38] Repent and be baptized: repentance is a positive concept, a change of mind and heart toward God reflected in the actual goodness of one’s life. It is in accord with the apostolic teaching derived from Jesus (Acts 2:42) and ultimately recorded in the four gospels. Luke presents baptism in Acts as the expected response to the apostolic preaching about Jesus and associates it with the conferring of the Spirit (Acts 1:5; 10:44–48; 11:16). (Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 2 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 33 presents God’s choosing a special people.

* [Psalm 33] A hymn in which the just are invited (Ps 33:1–3) to praise God, who by a mere word (Ps 33:4–5) created the three-tiered universe of the heavens, the cosmic waters, and the earth (Ps 33:6–9). Human words, in contrast, effect nothing (Ps 33:10–11). The greatness of human beings consists in God’s choosing them as a special people and their faithful response (Ps 33:12–22). (Psalms, PSALM 33 | USCCB, n.d.)

The Gospel of John presents the Appearance of the Resurrected Christ to Mary of Magdala.

* [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 | USCCB, n.d.)

Greg Dyche comments that Mary is crying, wailing as only the broken-hearted, or those without hope or consoling can weep. In such grief, Mary of Magdala doesn’t even fear the angels.

Overcome with tears, grief, and confusion, she doesn’t even know it’s Jesus and not the gardener who asks, “Whom are you looking for?” Switching to Aramaic, He calls her by name, Mariam. A single word, a name, her name. Staying in Aramaic, the language of home, she answers in full recognition, Rabbouni. Not a tender nickname, not the diminutive of Rabbi, the highest honor in the hierarchy of teaching titles.

Clinging to Jesus, hope restored, she tries to continue what was before, and Jesus tells her, “Stop holding on to me…” (Noli me tangere); things are different now. He tells her to go tell the others, be the apostle to the apostles. Finishing what had started with Eve, Per feminam mors, per feminam vita — “Through woman, death; through woman, life.”, Augustine.

Mariam is still telling me too. Jesus is going to His Father, my Father; His God, my God. I can’t wait to meet her and hear this story firsthand, from the first apostle. (Dyche, n.d.)

Don Schwager quotes “The Easter Alleluia,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"Because there are these two periods of time - the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy - we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing." (excerpt from commentary on Psalm 148, 1-2) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 20:11-18 comments that when Jesus reveals himself to Mary, he tells her, “Stop holding on to me” (John 20:17). He is not rejecting Mary; he wants her to see that he’s so much more than what she perceives. She needs to let go of her previous ideas of what it means to follow him. She needs to see Jesus no longer as just her “rabbouni” (20:16). She needs to see him as the risen Lord, the Son of God who overcame death and is ready to ascend to his Father.

The resurrection has changed everything! So let’s allow Jesus to broaden our perspective so that we can see him more clearly, as he is. Let’s allow him to expand our relationship with him. He is our brother who is enthroned at God’s right hand. And he is the Lord, the One who conquered death and calls each of us to be with him in his heavenly glory.

“Jesus, Lord, open my eyes to see your glory!” (Meditation on John 20:11-18, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler comments that the passage from Acts is the culmination of the kerygma of Peter, a first preaching that proclaims “Repent and be baptized”. The number of baptized in the text is likely a bit exaggerated as it is greater than the number of baptized that lived in Jerusalem. Friar Jude notes that Peter runs to the balcony to proclaim the mission impetuously, a weakness now used as a strength to proclaim in God’s way. Mary of Magdala looks into the tomb and is told of His rising. Jesus is not immediately recognized by those close to Him three times after resurrection. He and we are to be changed but we are the same. The sheep recognizes being called by the Shepherd. Friar Jude asserts Jesus and our loved ones will always be with us in a spiritual way even as we recognize them and allow them their freedom.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, introduces theologian and podcaster Kate Bowler who frames Easter as a feast of joy that doesn’t erase the pain that has come before it. Joy is one of the most powerful experiences we can have because it is an emotion that can co-exist with our actual lives. Unlike happiness, joy can live alongside sadness, boredom, fear, or despair. It expands our capacity to hold contradictory truths at the same time—and because we know joy, we recover a strange, steady confidence that life is still worth loving, even when it hurts.

This is where Easter joy lives.

It is not joy instead of grief. It is joy with grief. Not joy that rushes us forward, but joy that allows us to remain human in the meantime.… This joy is more totalizing than optimism. It is truer than plain happiness. It is the deep assurance that the story is not finished, even when our lives feel painfully incomplete.

Easter joy is the grace of being able to say: This is hard. I am still waiting. And God is still good.

Not because everything has changed—but because, one day—poof—God promises everything will. (Rohr, n.d.)

An article in the India Times Business News Magazine Panache offers a synopsis in a quote often attributed to John Lennon. 

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end,” shows his belief in hope and patience. The quote explains that this thought came from his own life experiences, including fame, personal loss, creative challenges, and family struggles. (Quote of the Day, n.d.)

We contemplate and seek the guidance of the Spirit to live with the Joy of Easter that will reassure us that our “rabbouni” supports our mission to live in His Way.

References

Acts of the Apostles, CHAPTER 2 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/acts/2?36 

Dyche, G. (n.d.). Daily Reflection. Creighton Online Ministries: Home. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/daily-reflections/daily-reflection-april-7-2026 

John, CHAPTER 20 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/20?11 

Meditation on John 20:11-18. (n.d.). Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://wau.org/meditations/2026/04/07/1539149/ 

Psalms, PSALM 33 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/33?4 

Quote of the Day. (n.d.). Business News Live, Share Market News - Read Latest Finance News, IPO, Mutual Funds News. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/quote-of-the-day-by-music-legend-john-lennon-everything-will-be-okay-in-the-end-if-its-not-okay-its-not-the-end/articleshow/127932447.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). A Different Kind of Joy. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-different-kind-of-joy/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). I Have Seen the Lord! Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/