Feast of St Mary Magdalene (July 22)

Entrance Antiphon: John 20:17 The Lord said to Mary Magdalene: Go to my brothers and tell them: I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

Collect: O God, whose Only Begotten Son entrusted Mary Magdalene before all others with announcing the great joy of the Resurrection, grant, we pray, that through her intercession and example we may proclaim the living Christ and come to see him reigning in your glory. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

St. Mary Magdalene Except for the mother of Jesus, few women are more honoured in the Bible than Mary Magdalene. Yet she could well be the patron of the slandered, since there has been a persistent legend in the Church that she is the unnamed sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus in Luke 7:36-50. Most Scripture scholars today point out that there is no scriptural basis for confusing the two women. Mary Magdalene, that is, "of Magdala," was the one from whom Christ cast out "seven demons" (Luke 8:2) — an indication, at the worst, of extreme demonic possession or, possibly, severe illness. Father W.J. Harrington, O.P., writing in the New Catholic Commentary, says that "seven demons" "does not mean that Mary had lived an immoral life—a conclusion reached only by means of a mistaken identification with the anonymous woman of Luke 7:36". Father Edward Mally, S.J., writing in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, agrees that she "is not...the same as the sinner of Luke 7:37, despite the later Western romantic tradition about her". Mary Magdalene was one of the many "who were assisting them [Jesus and the Twelve] out of their means". She was one of those who stood by the cross of Jesus with his mother. And, of all the "official" witnesses that might have been chosen for the first awareness of the Resurrection, she was the one to whom that privilege was given.

Scripture today: Song of Songs 3:1-4; Psalm 62; John 20:1-2, 11-18.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him! But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the feet. They asked her, Woman, why are you weeping? They have taken my Lord away, she said, and I don’t know where they have put him. At this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus. Woman, he said, why are you weeping? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him. Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned towards him and cried out in Hebrew, Rabboni! (which means Teacher). Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: I have seen the Lord! And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:1-2, 11-18)

Divine choice One of the fascinating features of salvation history is the recurrence of special divine choice. Of course, the presence of the conscience in man, with its command to do what is good and avoid what is evil, constitutes a call directed to each person. It is a call coming from the Creator and is personal to each. I am called, by the command of conscience, to be good by doing what is good. The “voice” of conscience is felt, when reflected upon, to be the echo of the “voice” of the Creator, and in that voice there is expressed a choice of the individual by the Creator to do the good. This is quite apart from the more fundamental “choice” of the individual by the Creator in bringing that person into being. I am chosen by the Creator to exist, and I am chosen by him to do what is good. While being the expression of the divine will and therefore a command, it is a high privilege for each and a precious gift. This divine choice is particular to all persons of all times and places conferring on all men and women of history a profound individual dignity. As well as this, of course, it is plain that the Creator has endowed with special gifts, temperaments and circumstances numerous individuals and even societies, and this for special service in the world. Men such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle possessed their philosophical talents for the benefit of mankind. A case could be made for saying that even certain societies and nations had their gifts for the benefit of mankind. The Pax Romana of the Mediterranean region (from Britain and Gaul to the Middle East) benefitted countless persons – and this was due to the administrative gifts and military prowess of classical Rome. So the divine choice can be discerned in ordinary human history, once the fact of the Creator and Ruler of all is accepted. But God has exercised this pattern of special choice most especially in the realm of salvation history. Abraham was an obscure family man in Mesopotamia who moved to Haran with his family when “out of the blue” he was chosen by God with an enormously important mission. He was to be the father of the faith of countless persons and the ancestor of the Messiah. Abraham is an archetype of those who are the object of divine choice in salvation history. This choice of Abraham also involved the divine choice of a people, and throughout its history, prior to the appearance of the Messiah, there were divine choices of individual kings, priests and prophets.

The fact of this is plain enough, but the intriguing thing is, why him or her, and why this people and not another? Of course, we do not know. When Jesus began his public ministry, he immediately set about calling to himself his disciples. He gathered and attracted disciples, but many he specifically chose and called. We read in the Gospel that he called from among his disciples twelve to be his special companions and collaborators in his mission. These he named Apostles. Why did he choose them, those ones in particular? Why did he choose Judas from among his disciples to be one of the Twelve, when Judas would turn out so badly? Why did he not select instead the one who would eventually (after the Ascension) succeed Judas, Matthias? – for we read in The Acts of the Apostles that Matthias was indeed a follower of Jesus from the beginning of his public ministry. We do not know. It was the divine choice. All this brings us to our Gospel passage today (John 20:1-2, 11-18), which recounts the discovery by Mary of the empty tomb and subsequently of her meeting with the risen Jesus. She had this inestimable privilege of gazing on the empty tomb with the stone rolled to the side, of telling the disciples that the tomb was empty, and then of meeting Jesus himself. Jesus chose to meet her, before almost all others. We may presume that he met and spoke to his mother first even though this is not recorded. Did the mother of Jesus ever tell others about her meeting with her risen Son? We do not know. It may have been too precious, too high and great an occasion, for her ever to have spoken of it. That aside, we do know that our Lord chose to speak to Mary Magdalene at the tomb and to give her this incalculable joy of seeing and speaking with the risen Saviour after having seen him die an atrocious death on the cross and being buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea afterwards. How Mary must have felt loved and chosen by our Lord – and he immediately gave her a mission. It was to announce to the disciples, including to the Eleven, that he had risen from the dead. Let us note that Mary of Magdala was not, thereby, designated as the one who loved Jesus the most, nor as being charged with the most important work of Christ, nor as being the greatest of his disciples. No – she was simply chosen by Christ for his own loving and good purposes

Each one of us is the object of the divine choice. We are this by our very creation, and this choice can be said to be operative continually in the voice of our daily conscience. But above and beyond that, we are the object of God’s choice in Christ. St Paul writes that before the world began God chose us in Christ to be holy and full of love in his sight. This eternal choice is confirmed in our Baptism, and confirmed by us in our acceptance of this calling to live in Christ all our days. Further, we have our particular path to follow and this too is the expression of God’s choice of us. It may be a humble path in the eyes of others, and the next person, perhaps once our very school classmate, has his high and prominent path that wins the acclaim of society. No matter that God chose him to do what many consider very important, and me with my lesser talents to do what is obscure and out of the sight of the many. No matter at all. What matters is that we accept our calling as expressing God’s loving choice, and then to live as best we can as his grateful and obedience children in Christ.

(E. J. Tyler)