The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, July 22, 2020

Song of Songs 3:2-5; 8:6-7

I will rise and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him Whom my heart loves. I sought Him but I did not find Him. The watchmen came upon me as they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen Him Whom my heart loves? I had hardly left them when I found Him Whom my heart loves. I took hold of Him and would not let Him go till I should bring Him to the home of my mother, to the room of my parent, I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and hinds of the field, do not arouse, do not stir up love before its own time. Set me as a seal on Your heart, as a seal on Your arm; for stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away. Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would despise it as nothing.

We celebrate today the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, a particularly joyous occasion because it reminds us that no matter how far we have fallen into sin, God will welcome us back to the life of grace if we repent.  The established facts of her life are few, and she is sometimes confused with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus because both women are said to have performed a similar service for our Lord.  St. Luke tells of an unnamed woman as coming to Jesus as he ate in the house of a Pharisee, “sitting behind at his feet. she began to wash his feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke 7, 38).  The Lord’s host, seeing this, thought to himself, “This man, if he were if a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that touched him, that she is a sinner” (Luke 7, 39).  This woman is traditionally identified as Mary Magdalene.  St. John describes a scene like this one, but distinct from it: “Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment” (John 12, 3).  This, of course, is Mary of Bethany, anointing the Lord’s feet at a feast held after he had raised her brother from the dead.  The reason why the two women were rolled into one, as it were, is because St. Gregory the Great combined the two in a sermon, and for a long time writers took their cue from him.

St. Mark identifies Mary Magdalene  as the woman “out of whom [Jesus] had cast seven devils” (Mark 16, 9).  Unfortunately, none of the Evangelists provide an account of what must have been a remarkable scene.  We find her prominent in the accounts of the Resurrection, however, underscoring her intense devotion to the Lord.  She stands with the Blessed Virgin and St. John beneath the Cross in our Lord’s final hours.  She lingers at the there hours after his Death and so sees Joseph of Arimithea take the Lord’s Body down from the Cross and follows along to the tomb.  It is she who takes the initiative in procuring what was necessary for anointing his dead Body and who sets out early in the morning, even before the sun rises, to go to the tomb.  And it is to her that the Scriptures tell us that he appeared first, with the Lord calling her name.  He sends her to tell the Apostles that he is alive and that they will see him.  For this reason, the Fathers call her “the Apostle to the Apostles.”

According to Eastern traditions, Mary Magdalene went with the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Apostle to Ephesus, where she later died.  It seems fitting that the three who stood at the Cross of the Lord should remain close after the Lord’s Ascension.  Medieval French legends tell of her (confused as Mary of Bethany) and Martha and Lazarus eventually making their way to the southern coast of France with the Holy Grail.

The reading above from the Song of Songs is the epistle from her feast according to the 1962 Roman Missal.  Reading it spiritually, we can read the heart of this holy woman.

“I will rise and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him Whom my heart loves.”  The Penitent stirs and rises from her sin, stung by her conscience, but even more so, yearning for the true love only God, “Him Whom my heart loves”, gives.  She does not know where to look for him and so she goes through her familiar haunts, “in the streets and crossings”, the occasions of her sin, but he is not there.  

“The watchmen came upon me as they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen Him Whom my heart loves?”  The “watchmen” are the priests of the Church who hear her devout confession and give her the guidance she needs.  “I had hardly left them when I found Him Whom my heart loves.”  Her sins wiped away in confession and atoned through penance, she finds the Love of her life and embraces him with all her might. “I took hold of Him and would not let Him go.”  This might remind us of how Mary Magdalene took hold of the Lord upon recognizing him in the Resurrection, so that Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me . . . But go to my brethren” (John 20, 17).  “Till I should bring Him to the home of my mother, to the room of my parent”, that is, until she had fully learned his teachings and was making progress in sanctity so as to bring him to others.    

“I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and hinds of the field, do not arouse, do not stir up love before its own time.”  That is, we cannot possess the Lord Jesus until we have turned our back to sin.

“Set me as a seal on Your heart, as a seal on Your arm.”  She speaks now to the Lord: Let our love be so intimate that my words are your words, and your deeds are my deeds.  “For stern as death is love.”  Death is implacable in that all must face it, but the love of God is not vanquished by it.  From this point in the reading, the name of Jesus May be read for the word “love”, as in “Stern as death is Jesus”, for Jesus is the name of Mary Magdalene’s love.  Here, we see the Lord Jesus unrelenting in his love for her and for us who believe in him:  “Strong as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire.”

“Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away.”  This is the experience of the contemplative, and a hint of the joy of heaven.  

“Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would despise it as nothing.”  Jesus, the Pearl of Great Price who gives himself freely and without cost to the one who loves him.