Today’s Mass readings for the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene place us in two gardens. The first from Song of Songs, where the bride seeks her beloved through the night streets. The second from John 20, where Mary Magdalene stands weeping at an empty tomb, asking a man she thinks is the gardener where they have taken her Lord. Both women seek the one their hearts love. Only one of them finds him risen from the dead.
What today’s readings give us
The First Reading from Song of Songs 3 gives us the bride’s nocturnal search through Jerusalem’s streets, asking the watchmen if they have seen “him whom my soul loveth.” She finds him and will not let him go. The Responsorial Psalm is Psalm 63, where the soul thirsts for God as a parched land thirsts for water. Second Corinthians 5 announces that whoever is in Christ is a new creation, the old has passed away. The Gospel is John 20, the first Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene mistakes the risen Christ for the gardener until he speaks her name.
The line worth carrying with you
The entire day turns on one word: “Mary.” She has been weeping at the tomb, speaking to angels, asking the supposed gardener where the body has been taken. Then Jesus speaks her name, and everything changes. She turns and says “Rabboni,” which means Teacher. The moment of recognition is the moment of resurrection entering her life. What Song of Songs imagined, John 20 fulfills. The beloved who was lost is found, not because the seeker was clever but because he spoke her name.
This is why Paul can write in today’s Second Reading that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold all things are made new” (Douay-Rheims, 2 Corinthians 5:17). Mary Magdalene becomes the first witness to the resurrection not because she understood the empty tomb but because she heard her name spoken by the one she sought. The old world where death has the final word passes away in that garden. The new creation begins when Christ calls us by name.
For today
Before bed tonight, read John 20:11-18 slowly. Let yourself stand in the garden with Mary. Notice that she does not recognize him until he speaks her name. Ask yourself what it means that Christ knows your name, that he speaks it, that the resurrection is not a doctrine to comprehend but a voice calling you to turn around.
Today’s full readings are at USCCB.
