Hello everyone. I hope you are well and keeping safe. Today is the feast of St Mary Magdalene. Over the centuries she has gotten a bad reputation before she met Jesus. When in reality, all we know from the gospel is that she was healed of possession by the Lord. What we ought to celebrate more than anything is her love for the Lord and that she (not Peter or the apostles!) was the first to witness the presence of the risen Lord. According to St. Mark's gospel, she was also standing by the cross of Christ.
May her love for the Lord generate our joyful experience of the Lord as well and help us to witness the healing power of Jesus day after day!
Here is a little reflection from the Franciscan Media website. Enjoy the day. Happy feast of Mary Magdalene.
They say that Mary Magdalene becomes the apostle to the apostles after she encounters Jesus risen. I wonder now if what she might have to teach them is this: the message of a heart that is rejoicing with resurrection joy. Though she is unable to explain what happened or how Christ is here, she explodes with the impetuous and overwhelming joy that it is to recognize the resurrected Christ when he calls your name. I wonder if she was sent out as the apostle of the heart, the one who hurries to where the others, who try to figure it all out with their heads, have gone so she can awaken their hearts. Mary runs out to the apostles to tell them the good news so that they can stop trying to figure out the tomb and simply rejoice. When she reaches out for Jesus in the garden, he tells her that she cannot hold on to him. As much as I am sure her heart would have liked to stay there in that moment forever, in that cocoon where it was just her and her Lord, her heart awakening to the “alleluia” life of the resurrection, she has a job to do. This joy is not meant only for her. It belongs to all his followers, to the whole world. She is sent to the apostles, who are then sent to the ends of the earth. Mary Magdalene bears the Good News to the Good News bearers. She is the first to know resurrection joy and the first to share it.
—from the book Who Does He Say You Are? Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels by Colleen Mitchell