And they said to her,
Woman, why are you weeping?
She said to them,
They have taken my Lord,
and I don’t know where they laid him.
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her,
Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?
She thought it was the gardener and said to him,
Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him.
Jesus said to her,
Mary!
She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
Rabbouni,
which means Teacher.
Jesus said to 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.’
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,
I have seen the Lord,
and then reported what he told her.
— John 20:11-18
The peace of the Lord be with you. Today is the feast of Mary Magdalene perhaps one of the most celebrated figures in salvation history. Mary Magdalene certainly was an individual who was deeply touched and changed by her encounter with the mercy of God through Jesus. In the introduction to my morning office this morning, I read that Mary Magdalene was the apostle’s apostle. Not only is Mary Magdalene the first person at the tomb (according to John), but she is also the one who anointed Jesus’s feet with an expensive perfume intermixed with her tears and dried his feet with her hair. I think, like Peter, she knew who this man was, and her actions speak about the genuine gratitude she had for the healing she received and experienced. She is evidence of the kind of power that God has to transform our lives when we open our hearts our hearts to Him.
Most loving Heavenly Father, please open my heart today that it may overflow with the gratitude for all that you have done for me — done for us — especially the restoration of our life, through the death of your son Jesus. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.