ST. ANNE'S NOVENA, St. Dominic's Church, San Francisco, Day 5, July 22, 2010

THE FEAST OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE

We continue our reflection on what it means to become the family of Jesus. The Church call us today to celebrate one of the original members of our family. Today is the feast of St. Mary Magdalene.

We actually know very little about St. Mary Magdalene from the scriptural witness. There is a great deal of legendary and traditional material about her but the Scriptures say almost nothing about her. This is complicated by the historical conflation of St. Mary Magdalene with other women in the Bible. Sometimes she is conflated with women who have no names, such as the woman caught in adultery, or the sinful woman who interrupted Jesus is dinner and going to see. This is further complicated by the sixth century defamation of her character that has been perpetuated in virtually every form of popular culture, Art, literature and cinema since the sixth century. St. Mary Magdalene is first called a prostitute five centuries after she lived. There is no evidence of this tradition before the 6^th century and since 1969 the church has officially shied away from such references to this important woman. But I would give anything to see a movie or book about the life of Jesus that presented Mary Magdalene as anything other than a prostitute.

So DO we know? What does the Bible say about St. Mary Magdalene? She appears in all four Gospels but in three of those Gospels her name is never mentioned until the passion narrative. In the passion narrative she is the only person who was present for all three the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus.

In Luke's Gospel alone is she mentioned outside the Passion narrative, and then only in a passing reference. But we learn quite a bit about her from this passing reference. In chapter 8 of Luke's Gospel we are told that as Jesus went about his preaching ministry, proclaiming the kingdom of God, he was accompanied by his disciples and by a group of women. Among those women, three are named: Susannah, Joanna, and Mary Magdalene - to which Luke add that seven demons had been cast out of Mary Magdalene. Luke also says that these women supported Jesus' ministry out of their resources (for this reason, we should remember her, perhaps, as the patron saint of benefactors of preaching ministries.

Because of Mary Magdalene's faithfulness to the end of Jesus' ministry - again, while most of Jesus' male disciples were hiding for fear, Mary Magdalene accompanied him all the way to the cross and was present at his death. For this faithfulness, she was rewarded by Jesus as the first person to see him after the resurrection. In all four Gospels, the resurrected Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene before he appears to any of the other disciple. More importantly, it is Mary Magdalene that is entrusted with the message [“good news,” “gospel”] of the resurrection and given the responsibility to take that message to the other disciples. Because she is the first one in trusted with the preaching of the resurrection, she has been called the apostle to the apostles and is one of the primary patrons of the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans.

So what does the life of Mary Magdalene have to teach us about what it means to be the family of Jesus? First, from Mary Magdalene we learn that every encounter with Jesus Christ is supposed to transform our live. The implication of Mary Magdalene having had seven demons cast out is that the encounter with Jesus changed her life. How have we allowed our encounter with Jesus in the Scriptures, in the Eucharist, in our Christian brothers and sisters to transform our lives?

Second like Mary Magdalene we are called to allow the deep love for Jesus that we have because we have been transformed by him to compel us to faithfulness

And finally like Mary Magdalene, once we believe that we have seen the resurrected Christ we are called to tell others what we believe. We are entrusted with the message and cannot keep it to ourselves. The message of the Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ must burn from within us and others must be told that we believe.

On this Feast Day, let us pray for the grace to have our live transformed by every encounter with Jesus, let us pray to have a love that leads us to great faithfulness, and let us ask God to give us the heart of an apostle, willing to preach the good news to those to whom we are sent. Amen?