Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene

The Apostle to the Apostles

Jul 22, 2025

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In the pre-dawn stillness, when the world is shrouded in silence and uncertainty, Mary Magdalene runs. Not toward answers, but toward absence. The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. Her hope—once laid to rest—is missing.

And yet, she stays. While Peter and the other disciple depart, Mary remains at the edge of loss. She weeps not simply for the missing body, but for the vanishing of the One who gave her back her life. Scripture tells us she had been freed of seven demons; her healing was total, transformative. Her life was a before and after story. And now, in the “after,” even the tomb is silent.

But the silence is not empty—it is rich with encounter.

In one of the most intimate and heart-wrenching scenes of the Gospels, Mary meets the Risen Christ. She doesn’t recognize Him at first. She mistakes Him for a gardener. It is only when He says her name—Mary!—that she knows.

This moment reveals something foundational about the spiritual life: we are found not by our own striving, but when we allow ourselves to be called by name. The Risen Lord does not appear in thunder or blinding glory. He appears as a man in a garden—gentle, familiar, near.

Today’s feast reminds us that the Christian life is not first about seeing signs or attaining knowledge—it is about love, loyalty, and presence. Mary does not run from the tomb; she waits by it. She brings her grief, her confusion, her longing. And it is precisely there, in the aching of her love, that the Lord appears.

The Song of Songs offers a fitting companion text: “I sought him whom my heart loves.” Mary Magdalene is the embodiment of that longing. And it is that longing that turns into the first apostolic proclamation of the Resurrection: “I have seen the Lord.”

This is why the Church calls her Apostle to the Apostles. Not because of her credentials, her status, or her eloquence, but because of her faithfulness in love. She stood by the cross. She waited by the tomb. She ran with joy to tell others. In Mary Magdalene, we see that it is the heart that sees God first.

And what of us? What tombs are we weeping outside of today? What absences haunt us? Where have we failed to recognize the Lord, mistaking Him for something else?

The Lord asks us, too: “Whom are you looking for?”
And then, perhaps softly, perhaps suddenly, He calls our name.