Commentary on the Gospel of
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 four evangelists. A witness to Jesus' crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection, she was also the first person to see the open tomb. The Lord chose her to be the first messenger of the resurrection to the other apostles, earning her the title "Apostle of the Apostles.".
The first words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John are a question that Jesus asked the two disciples of John the Baptist: “What are you looking for?” Everything Jesus teaches and does later in John's gospel answer that question: We are looking for the way, the truth, the life, and the bread from heaven that satisfies our hunger.
At the end of the gospel, as we read in today’s passage, this question is repeated: In accordance with Jewish custom, Mary Magdalene goes to anoint Jesus' body on Easter Sunday morning. However, she discovers him walking in the garden, although she doesn’t recognize him. Jesus turns to her and repeating the question with which he began his ministry, asks her: “What are you looking for? ”
Mary’s reply expresses her anguish for her beloved. It is usually in the garden where lovers meet. Jesus responds with love, calling her by name: “Mary”, and 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 into the garden is to hear God pronounce our names in love. To hear God lovingly calling us by our name: ...
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, p. 176.]
