DAILY MEDITATION: "Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”"

Liturgical day: July 22nd: Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene

Gospel text (Jn 20,1-2.11-18): On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”

Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he told her.

"Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”"

Fr. Antoni CAROL i Hostench
(Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain)

Today, we celebrate with joy Saint Mary Magdalene. With joy and benefit for our faith!, because her trail could very well be ours. Magdalene came from afar (cf. Luke 7,36-50) and she did go very far... Indeed, at the dawn of the Resurrection, Mary looked for Jesus, found the risen Jesus and met Jesus’ Father, "Our Father". That morning, Jesus Christ revealed to her the most important fact of our faith: that she was also God’s daughter.

In Mary Magdalene's itinerary, we discover some important aspects of our faith. In the first place, we admire her courage. Though being a gift from God, faith requires courage from the believer. Generally, we tend towards what we can see, what can be seized with our hand. God being essentially invisible, faith “represents the risky enterprise of accepting what plainly cannot be seen as the truly real and fundamental. It involves a leap out of the tangible world” (Benedict XVI). Mary, by seeing the risen Christ can also "see" the Father, the Lord.

On the other hand, the “leap to faith” “is attained through what the Bible calls conversion or repentance: only he who changes receives it" (Benedict XVI). Was not this Mary’s first step? Should not this also be a reiterated step in our lives?

In the conversion of Magdalene, there was much love: she did not spare any perfumes for her Love. Love! here is another "vehicle" of faith, because we neither hear, nor see or believe whom we do not love. In John’s Gospel it clearly appears “believing is to listen and, at the same time, to see (...)” In that dawn, Mary Magdalene takes risks for her Love, she listens to her Love (to hear Him saying "Mary" is enough for her to recognize Him) and she meets the Father. “Easter morning (...), Mary Magdalene is asked to contemplate him as he ascends to the Father, and finally to her full confession before the disciples: "I have seen the Lord!" (Jn 20, 18)” (Pope Francis).

Source: evangeli.net