Tag: Mary Magdalene

Saturday in the Octave of Easter

April 6, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Acts 4:13-21
Psalm 118:14-21
Mark 16:9-15

“Though the Lord has indeed chastised me, yet He has not delivered me to death. Open to me the gates of justice and I will enter them and give thanks to the Lord.” These words of Psalm 118 which we have prayed are exemplified in a particular way in the person of Saint Mary Magdalene who is the first to experience the risen Lord Jesus. The Gospels and Tradition of the Church tell us that Mary Magdalene did not recognize the risen Lord to be Jesus until He speaks her name. Her name, like all human names, carries with it a character of the uniqueness of her person, her dignity, that is the most intimate part of her humanity — even more so than the aggregate of human nature. Her name is what identifies her as being unique as a person in the eyes of Christ — uniquely created and uniquely redeemed. Her name is so much more than a pronoun that cloaks the person in anonymity and isolation. She was denied her name when she was dominated by the seven demons that the Lord cast out from her — the demons that not only included her own sin but even more dramatically the effects of the sins of others perpetrated against her with its resulting anonymity and isolation.