St. Mary Magdalene

St. Mary Magdalene was a native of Magdala, formerly a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Luke introduces her in his Gospel as the one “from whom seven devils had gone out” and as one of those who “were assisting [Jesus and the apostles] out of their means” (Luke 8:2). She witnessed our Lord’s crucifixion and valiantly stood beneath his cross (John 19:25), and as today’s Gospel reading (John 20:1–2, 11–18) narrates, she was the first to see the empty tomb and the resurrected Lord. Tradition sometimes identifies Mary Magdalene, though it is not absolutely clear in the Gospels nor universally held, with Mary, the sister of Martha (Luke 10:39), or the unnamed sinner who entered the house of Simon the Pharisee and wiped our Lord’s feet with her hair (Luke 7:37). Today’s Mass formula says nothing about Mary Magdalene having been a sinner (as the Mass formula before the 1969 liturgical changes had done), but it stresses that it was she who first saw the Risen Jesus and was given the commission to be the messenger of Paschal joy to the apostles. The tradition in the East is that she went to Ephesus (in modern Turkey) with St. John and there she died. By the tenth century, her feast was celebrated in Constantinople (modern Istanbul) on July 22. Two texts are proposed for the first reading: the one from the (Song of Songs 3:1–4) recalls Mary Magdalene’s search for Jesus at the sepulcher, and that from (2 Corinthians 5:14–17) recalls the love that burned within her.