Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Mary Magdalene; the first one to witness the resurrection of Christ, and a witness also to the transforming power of God’s love, manifested in Jesus Christ. Her testimony of life is so important that, in June 2016, while the Church celebrated the Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis declares that the liturgical day in which her memory is celebrated be considered a Feast.
A lot has been written through the years about Mary of Magdala, much of which is speculation, fantasy, and, in the worst case, cheap “tabloid” stories. The readings that the Church proposes for her feast day, however, make it possible to depict who indeed was this great woman, and how she stands as a model of the work that God wants to do in our lives.
A Search
The first option for first reading of this Feast shows the search of a lover for her beloved. It is a tireless search, a tenacious search, one that will not end until she has found “Him whom her heart loves.” It is for sure the search that occupied the heart of Mary Magdalene her whole life. Tormented by “seven demons” (Luke 8:1-3), one can only imagine the need she had to find the One that could free her and help her experience peace and love. It is also easy to see how, given her miserable condition, she could appropriate the words of the psalmist, who says: “my soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”
However, we know that one day she is found by Jesus Christ, and in Him she receives all she has always yearned for. Christ’s love expelled those demons out of the life of Mary Magdalene for good. She was free! Her response was to give everything up in the service of Christ’s mission, and to follow him even until the end. Once she meets Christ’s unfathomable love, she experiences what St. Paul says in the second option for first reading, when he affirms that “whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old things have passed away behold, new things have come.”
Transformed
Moreover, her experience of Christ’s love so transformed her life, that she was not willing to part with this love, even after death. In the Gospel we can see how, after seeing the tomb empty, and Christ’s body nowhere to be found, she remains there with the hope to see him again. For sure she holds on to the certainty that “strong as death is love,” and that such a love cannot be limited by the normal dimensions of time and space. Indeed, she has an experience of the risen Christ, who knows her by name, and who commands her to go and announce to her brothers that He is alive; that Love has triumphed; that He has destroyed death. That is how she becomes the first to announce the resurrection of Christ.
Celebrate with Hope and Joy
Why is it relevant to celebrate with hope and joy the feast of St. Mary Magdalene? Because she stands as the model of what the transforming power of God’s love wants to do in ALL of us. All of us experience, in one way or another, the miseries of life. We also are assailed by “seven demons,” which are the seven capital sins that, in one way or another, threaten us constantly and obscure in us the vision of the love of God. All of us are people who are searching. Searching for love, searching for happiness, searching for peace, searching for truth. Thus, like Mary Magdalene, we are invited today to let ourselves be found by the one “whom our heart loves.” Let us allow this Feast and these readings convince us that, in Christ, we also can be “a new creation;” that our old self can give way to a new self; that we can also see the fruits of God’s love in us, transforming our existence and giving us what our hearts desire.
May St. Mary Magdalene intercede for us today, so that we too may find that love that is stronger than death, so that like her, we may also experience the total happiness that comes from following Christ to the end.
