Mary Magdalene
THE DISCREET SERVANT
In the first reading, we hear how the people of God starts its march to a land of their own where they can serve God in freedom and be the living kingdom of God: the Promised Land. But the journey will be long, slow-paced, marked with sufferings, confusions and hesitations, momentary revolts and betrayals. But God is with them: he does not sleep, says today’s text. For the Hebrews and for us, God stands sentinel in the night.
Jesus is presented today as the servant of God who brings healing to the people without drawing attention to himself: He brings God’s tender care to people. He respects and heals what is little and brittle.
First Reading: Song of Songs 3:1-4B
Restless in bed and sleepless through the night, I longed for my lover. I wanted him desperately. His absence was painful. So I got up, went out and roved the city, hunting through streets and down alleys. I wanted my lover in the worst way! I looked high and low, and didn’t find him. And then the night watchmen found me as they patrolled the darkened city. “Have you seen my dear lost love?” I asked. No sooner had I left them than I found him,
found my dear lost love. I threw my arms around him and held him tight, wouldn’t let him go until I had him home again, safe at home beside the fire.
Restless in bed and sleepless through the night, I longed for my lover. I wanted him desperately. His absence was painful.
2 So I got up, went out and roved the city, hunting through streets and down alleys. I wanted my lover in the worst way! I looked high and low, and didn’t find him.
3 And then the night watchmen found me as they patrolled the darkened city. “Have you seen my dear lost love?” I asked.
4 No sooner had I left them than I found him, found my dear lost love.
Gospel: John 20:1-2; 11-18
Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”
But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?”
“They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him.
Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?”
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”
Jesus said, “Mary.”
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”
Jesus said, “Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: “I saw the Master!” And she told them everything he said to her.
Prayer
Lord our God,
you gave us Jesus, your Son,
as the wise and perfect servant
of you and of the people.
Put your Spirit on us too,
that like him and with him,
we may bring your healing and justice
to the weak and the dispossessed,
without calling attention to ourselves,
that people may see that what we give them
is your tender care as taught us
by Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Reflection
22 July 2022
John 20:1,11-18
St Mary Magdalene: Apostle of the Apostles
Today the Church celebrates the feast of the first witness to the Risen Lord – St. Mary Magdalene. She is the only woman disciple of Jesus, named by all the four evangelists. Being present at the crucifixion, and at the empty tomb, she was an eyewitness to the ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And the Lord chose her to be the first messenger of the resurrection to the other apostles – which earned her the title “Apostle of the Apostles”
In the gospel of John, the first words that Jesus speaks is a question: “What are you looking for?” Essentially everything that Jesus does and teaches in the rest of John’s gospel gives an answer to that question: We are looking for the way, the truth, the life, the living water to quench our thirst and the bread from heaven to satiate our hunger. But those answers are partially abstract. At the end of the gospel, we have this question repeated and there is the answer:
On Easter Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene goes out to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. She, but finds him walking in a garden (the typical place where lovers meet). But she doesn’t recognize him. Jesus turns to her and, repeating the question with which the ministry of Jesus in the gospel of John began, asks her: “What are you looking for?”
Mary replies that she is looking for the body of Jesus who was killed and buried. And Jesus simply calls her by name: “Mary”. He pronounces her name in love. She falls at his feet.
That is the essence of the whole gospel: What are we ultimately looking for? The desire and love that drives us out into gardens is to hear God pronounce our names in love. To hear God lovingly calling us by our name: Jose!
The following is a poem by renowned theologian Fr. Ron Rolheiser about the encounter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus in the garden.
I never suspected
Resurrection to be so painful… to leave me weeping
With joy to have met you, alive and smiling, outside an empty tomb
With regret, not because I’ve lost you but because I’ve lost you in how I had you — in understandable, touchable, kissable, ‘clingable’ flesh not as fully Lord, but as ‘graspably’ human.
I want to cling, despite your protest cling to your body cling to your, and my, clingable humanity cling to what we had, our past.
But I know that…if I cling, you cannot ascend and
I will be left clinging to your former self …unable to receive your present spirit.
[Fr Ronald Rolheiser, Mary Magdala’s Easter Prayer in Forgotten Among the Lillies, p176.]