Monday, July 22, 2013
St. Mary Magdalene
1st Reading: Song 3:1-4
Gospel: John 20:1-2, 11-18
On the first day after the Sabbath, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb (…) Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she bent down to look inside; she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, and the other at the feet. They said, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She answered, “Because they have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have put him.”
As she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize him. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and answered him, “Lord, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and remove him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him, “Rabboni”. Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me; you see I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them: I am ascending to my Father, who is your Father, to my God, who is your God.”
So Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord…”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Central to today’s Gospel message are two encounters of Mary Magdalene, namely her encounter with the angels (verse 12) and her encounter with the risen Lord who gave her the mission of reporting the resurrection to the disciples (verse 17). A parallel story was the experience of the Virgin Mary. An angel also appeared to her and she also encountered the Lord. But unlike Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the Lord which happened at the mouth of the tomb, the Virgin Mary’s encounter was most intimate for the Lord was inside her womb.
Experts in prose say that a good story is one that ends where it begins. The salvation story is one such good story. It began with an angel appearing to a Mary with a mission to carry out the incarnation, and it ended with angels appearing to another Mary with a mission to spread the news of the resurrection. This congruence is a poetic formulation of the fact that the Incarnation was resurrection waiting to happen.
Mary of Magdala was already at the heart of the resurrection event, yet grief held her hostage to the past, making her dwell on Calvary’s harrowing experience. But her story still ended the Incarnation story well, for as the other Mary delivered the Word to the world, this Mary delivered the news of the resurrection of the Lord. But the story is not over. It needs a good footnote by the lives of good witnesses to translate it to the language of this new generation.—Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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