Published: July 22, 2026
There is a moment in the Gospel of John that stands apart from all others in its simplicity and its tenderness. Mary Magdalene stands weeping outside the empty tomb, her grief so complete that she cannot yet see what is directly in front of her. She has come in the darkness of early morning, driven by love, and found the stone rolled away and the body of her Lord gone. She runs to tell the apostles, but she returns again to the tomb — because love, even when it has nowhere to turn, cannot simply walk away.
This persistent returning is the first spiritual lesson of today's feast. Mary could have received the news of the empty tomb and gone home, confused and bereft. Instead, she stays. She weeps. She looks into the tomb again. When the angels ask her why she weeps, she does not hide her sorrow; she names it plainly: "They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they laid him." There is something profoundly honest about Mary's grief that the Church holds up for us to see. She is not pretending to be at peace when she is not. She is not performing composure. She is entirely present to her loss, and this very presence — this refusal to abandon hope while admitting pain — is what positions her to receive the most extraordinary encounter in human history.
When Mary turns and sees a man she assumes to be the gardener, her first instinct is still to seek. "Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him." Even in her darkest moment, her orientation is not toward herself but toward the Lord. She wants to find him, to care for him, to ensure that his body is given the dignity it deserves. This is love in its most active form — not sentimental, not passive, but searching and sacrificial.
Then comes the turning point of the entire passage, and perhaps one of the most beautiful moments in all of Scripture. Jesus says simply, "Mary." One word. Her name. And everything changes.
The theology embedded in that single word is breathtaking. Jesus does not announce himself with a proclamation or appear with signs and wonders. He calls her by name — the most personal of all possible acts. In doing so, he fulfills what he had said earlier in John's Gospel: he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. The Good Shepherd has conquered death, and the first thing he does is find his lost sheep and call her home by her own name. Mary does not recognize the Risen Christ by his appearance, or even by his voice in the abstract — she recognizes him because he knows her. There is no greater spiritual truth here: we come to know the Risen Lord not primarily through argument or doctrine alone, but through the encounter of being personally and intimately known by him.
Mary's response — "Rabbouni!" — is a word that carries extraordinary weight. It is not merely the formal title "Teacher," but a term of deep personal reverence and warmth. The feeling behind that word tells us everything about her relationship with Jesus. And her instinct is to hold on, to cling to this moment and to the Lord she had thought she had lost forever.
But Jesus gently redirects her: "Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Here is the second great spiritual lesson of today's feast: the encounter with the Risen Christ is never meant to be kept for ourselves. Mary is not called to remain in the garden in private mystical union. She is sent. Her personal encounter immediately becomes a mission. She is to go and announce the Resurrection to the apostles. In this, the Church has long recognized Mary Magdalene as the "Apostle to the Apostles" — a title that Pope Francis elevated to liturgical dignity when he raised her commemoration to a Feast in 2016, honoring her singular role in salvation history.
What does Jesus say, through Mary, to the apostles? "I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." These words carry a weight that is easy to pass over too quickly. Before the Resurrection, Jesus spoke of God as his Father in a way unique to himself. Now, through his death and rising, he explicitly includes his disciples in that relationship. The Father of Jesus is now also our Father. The God of Jesus is now also our God. The Resurrection does not simply restore a prior state of affairs — it opens an entirely new order of intimacy between God and humanity, one made possible only by the Cross.
For us, sitting with this gospel on the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, the practical invitation is clear and urgent. We are called first to the same persistent love that Mary demonstrated — the love that stays even when there seem to be no answers, that continues to seek even in grief. Many of us know periods of spiritual darkness, seasons when God feels distant and prayer seems to echo in silence. The example of Mary tells us: stay near the tomb. Do not walk away. Keep looking. The very act of remaining in that place of grief and desire is itself a form of fidelity, and fidelity is what love looks like when feeling fails.
We are also called to listen for our name. The Risen Christ still calls each of us by name. He meets us in the personal, intimate way that no crowd experience alone can replace. He knows our history, our wounds, our longings, and our capacity for love. The encounter with him in prayer, in the sacraments, and in the community of the Church is never generic — it is always addressed to us, specifically and personally. The same Lord who said "Mary" in the garden on Easter morning says your name today, in whatever quiet or chaos your life holds right now.
And finally, we are sent. Whatever grace we receive in our encounter with the Risen Lord is meant to overflow into our relationships, our families, our communities, and our world. Mary ran from the garden and announced with breathtaking simplicity: "I have seen the Lord." We, who have received so much, are called to carry that same announcement forward in our own lives — not necessarily in grand words, but in the quality of love, attention, and faithfulness we bring to everyone we meet. The world does not need us to perform holiness. It needs us to carry the living Lord into every ordinary place we inhabit.
Saint Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, pray for us.
Gospel: John 20:1-2, 11-18 | Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene | July 22, 2026