Sunday, August 3, 2014

Tuesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle A - July 22, 2014

Tuesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene
July 22, 2014       6:30am

 

In this gospel passage, Mary Magdalene emerges as a model of faith.
We see, right within these few verses, the growth of Mary’s faith.

First, Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb while it is still dark.
The darkness is literal – the sun apparently had not yet risen.
And the darkness is also symbolic – it stands for Mary’s darkness and our darkness when we do not fully understand Jesus or who Jesus is.
Then, Mary notices that the stone has been rolled away.
She is still thinking that Jesus is dead and that someone has stolen his body.
Then, Mary’s first awareness of something special or extraordinary taking place is when she returns to the tomb and sees two angels there.
They ask her, “Why are you weeping?”
This is the first inkling that we are not dealing here simply with Jesus’ death.
Then, Jesus appears to Mary but she does not at first recognize him.
When she does eventually recognize him, she at first calls him “Rabbouni” which simply means “teacher.”
Finally, after she listens to Jesus, she goes and tells the other disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”

So, notice her growth in faith or growth in her relationship with the Lord.
Mary moves from darkness to increasing light; from not recognizing Jesus to speaking of him as a teacher to finally to talk of him as the Lord, as God himself.

I recommend that her message to us is to keep growing in our own faith.
We are never to stop growing in our appreciation of who Jesus is, of what our relationship to him can be, of how we pray and what expectations he makes of us in daily life.

We always have more to learn and more space for growing in relation to the Almighty.