CHUKA KEN MINISTRY

Mary Magdalene showed courage in her darkest hour. We’re called to do the same.

A Reflection for the Feast of Saint Mary of Magdala

“Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark …” (Jn 20:1)

I have long loved Mary of Magdala, for a number of reasons—most particularly, the fact that my birthday falls on her feast day. In 2016, when Pope Francis elevated our celebration of Mary of Magdala from a memorial to a feast on the church’s liturgical calendar, it felt like an early birthday present. And not just because the feast had been “upgraded” but because the decree announcing it was titled “​​Apostolorum Apostola,” honoring Mary with her traditional title as “Apostle to the Apostles,” the one whom, as our Gospel today recounts, the risen Jesus sends to tell the other apostles the most transformative good news in all of history.

There is an almost endless amount that could be said about Mary of Magdala, and Americahas said plenty of it over the years. We can recognize in Mary a model for the ministry of women as evangelists and preachers of the Gospel; we can marvel at the moment when “she was the church,” as the first and, until she carried out her mission to spread the news, the sole witness of the Resurrection.

But what I’d like to add to this today is a realization about Mary that I had during the first Easter of the pandemic, when celebrating Easter Mass with my Jesuit community in our house chapel during lockdown.

I woke up on Easter morning to a text on the family chain from my youngest brother, who was in his final year of residency as a pediatrician. He had just been informed that their pediatrics unit in the hospital would be temporarily transformed into a Covid ward and that they would be caring for patients, many of whom, during those early and terrifying days of the pandemic, would die alone and isolated, unable even to be comforted by family and friends.

I realized that this had been Mary of Magdala’s experience at the foot of the Cross, watching a friend she loved die without being able to touch him. I realized that, as amazed as I have often been to think about Mary’s mission to announce the Resurrection, that mission was only possible because of Mary’s courage, in her moment of deepest grief, to go to the tomb before she knew that Jesus was risen.

“Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark …”

While it was still dark, Mary’s love for Jesus was strong enough to draw her out from fear and self-protection, even when all she hoped to be able to do for Jesus was to help anoint his body or perhaps to weep at his tomb. The miracle of the Resurrection was already at work in Mary’s courage and love for Jesus, even before she knew what she was called to witness.

(Full disclosure here: No preacher ever uses an insight just once, which is something I presume I share with Mary of Magdala, whom I have to believe was called upon to preach, over and over again, her encounter with the risen Jesus in probably every Christian community she visited for the rest of her life. I have preached this message before, both to my own Jesuit community that Easter during lockdown and this past Easter at the Church of St. Francis Xavier.)

How is God calling us to bear courageous witness, even while it is still dark? Where, in the midst of our own fear and grief, is God asking us to venture out in love, even to what may seem to be a tomb? And what miracles, what stones rolled back, might God be asking us to announce to the world after we, inspired by the example of the Apostle to the Apostles, find the courage to go and see?

Mary Magdalene: A guide for the hour of trial

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3 Honors given to St. Mary Magdalene, according to Aquinas

St. Mary Magdalene appears in a few places in the Bible, though her most prominent mention is immediately following the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John.

St. Thomas Aquinas reflects on this passage in his commentary on the Gospel and states that she was given three honors or “privileges” in this encounter.

Notice the three privileges given to Mary Magdalene.

First, she had the privilege of being a prophet because she was worthy enough to see the angels, for a prophet is an intermediary between angels and the people.

Secondly, she had the dignity or rank of an angel insofar as she looked upon Christ, on whom the angels desire to look.

Thirdly, she had the office of an apostle; indeed, she was an apostle to the apostles insofar as it was her task to announce our Lord’s resurrection to the disciples. Thus, just as it was a woman who was the first to announce the words of death, so it was a woman who would be the first to announce the words of life.

John Paul II

St. John Paul II also saw these special honors given to Mary Magdalene, reflecting on them in his apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem.

Hence she came to be called “the apostle of the Apostles.” Mary Magdalene was the first eyewitness of the Risen Christ, and for this reason she was also the first to bear witness to him before the Apostles. This event, in a sense, crowns all that has been said previously about Christ entrusting divine truths to women as well as men. One can say that this fulfilled the words of the Prophet: “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Jl 3:1). 

It should not be surprising that the Church celebrated Mary Magdalene’s memory with great solemnity and the Church has restored that honor once again, elevating July 22 to the rank of a “feast.”