Pondering Mary Magdalene’s journey, it seems to be in four movements. The first is her experience of living in the darkness and anguish of great suffering. Theologian Ilia Delio writes “Suffering is the place of transformation. It is a door by which God can enter into our lives and love us where we are, in our human weakness, our misery, our pain.”[1] We don’t really know the cause of Mary’s suffering except that she had the experience of being released from something that was tortuous enough to be called seven demons[2] This suggests that Mary lived in terrible anguish. We know that through an encounter with Jesus, she was healed. As an important figure among the followers of Jesus, it is curious that we don’t hear Mary’s healing story. But we do know that it was Jesus who healed her and included her in his company of disciples. Mary’s second movement is during and after her healing. No longer the same person as before she was ill. Transformed by suffering and by healing, Mary is now a new creation able to receive love. She now has a new and purposeful future.
Her healing experience gives Mary personal authority. In this second movement, she is living evidence of Jesus’ capacity to free us. The woman that we meet in the Gospels knows there is a radical difference between life before Jesus and life after encountering Jesus. She knows the difference between a life of torment and probable isolation and a life of being loved and included.
In the optional first reading for Mary’s Feast Day on July 22nd, we hear “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.[3] Mary is proof for all to see of the power of Jesus’ mission to love us out of darkness. To heal and transform us ‘…so that we may have life, and have it more abundantly.’[4] Mary, a woman who understands suffering, understands ours. She points us to Jesus. Like Mary we are transformed by both our suffering and our healing. Jesus also makes us a new creation with a new future.
In Luke we learn that Mary is a woman of independent means.[5] Suffering doesn’t only afflict the poor. Having money cannot protect us from what ails us in mind, body or spirit. After her healing, Mary uses her resources to assist Jesus in his mission. She is not alone in providing support. Also named are Susanna, and Joanna and ‘many others’.[6] Salome and Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses[7] are also part of this group of women walking with and providing for Jesus, and his company.
“…(Jesus) journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.”.
Naming the infirmities and evil spirits from which the women had been liberated, illustrates their importance among the disciples. They bear personal evidence of the power of Jesus in their very being. They also witness the belonging that comes from being freed. Mary and the ‘many other’ women with whom Jesus travelled, was integral to the capacity of Jesus to move around the country and live independently. They walked with him, shared life and learned from him. Mary was in insider in Jesus’ life. A participant in the daily life of Jesus. A contributor to his mission.
The next time we meet Mary she is standing with Jesus’ mother and other women at the foot of the Cross upon which Jesus is dying. “Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.[8] and “…standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.[9]
Mary Magdalene’s faithfulness to Jesus and to his mother, meant that neither was alone in this excruciating experience. She resolutely witnessed the horror of Jesus death and the anguish beyond words of his mother’s suffering. She did not abandon the One who saved her. Since there is only one reference to any of the Twelve being with Jesus during his crucifixion, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, [10] Mary Magdalene and the other women’s presence must have required courage. Standing with his mother as Jesus dies, witnessing his suffering, Mary Magdalene gives love back to the One who healed and included her.
Remaining until the very end, Mary Magdalene witnesses Jesus’ burial.[11] Afterwards, with the other women, Mary went home to prepare spices and perfumed oils to anoint Jesus body before resting on the Sabbath.[12] It is not over for Mary. She is still faithful even after Jesus’ death.
Our next encounter with Mary is the beginning of the third movement. Her deeper journey from confusion and grief to incredible encounter. Mary’s discovery of the empty tomb is reported in all four Gospel’s. We will focus on John’s gospel read on St. Mary Magdalene’s Feast Day.
In the early morning while it was still dark, Mary travelled alone to Jesus’ tomb. Still dedicated to Jesus, respecting and caring for his body, Mary is steadfast while others are hiding, lost in their grief and fear. Seeing the stone has been moved, she is the first witness that the tomb is empty. This discovery leaves Mary lost and confused. She runs to tell the others that Jesus body has been moved and that she doesn’t know where to find him.[13] Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved run to the tomb where they discover the burial clothes but the tomb is empty. They return home.[14]
Mary remained. She had witnessed Jesus’ suffering, death and burial. Now she is bereft. Sitting near the empty tomb, two angels ask why she is weeping. Mary replies “They have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have laid him.”[15] Turning, Mary sees Jesus but, like the two on the road to Emmaus, sight alone is not enough to recognise him. What follows is an extraordinary personal encounter between Mary and Jesus. He asks her “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”[16] The same question Jesus asks of us when we are lost, confused, consumed by darkness as our world can feel in these times. Communicating with Jesus is always about what our hearts are truly feeling, naming our own needs and the needs of others, we say what is real to us, who it is that we seek. We tell the truth. We ask for help, just as Mary did.
Mary asks “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”[17] Her concern was for Jesus, whom she watched suffer and saw buried. In a tender response Jesus reveals himself by saying her name “Mary!” Hearing her name brings recognition. Mary’s heart immediately responds “Rabbouni”.[18] Hear the Aramaic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsp_lMg_iM4
With that one personal word, her name, Mary is catapulted from confusion and darkness into the truth of the risen Christ. In our own darkness, when all seems lost, personal encounter with Jesus is the pathway into light. Jesus is the initiator, as he was with Mary. When we are weeping, we too can turn and speak to him. We can receive his love and respond with our whole being, as Mary shows us.
Jesus’ Resurrection is the dawn of a new creation, a new future, a new cosmos.[19] We are really used to hearing the word ‘resurrection’, thinking ‘Yes, I know about that.’ We can read Mary’s encounter as a repeated story of an historical event rather than with the breathtaking freshness of Mary’s actual experience. She is called by name by the One she thought was gone. What a moment that must have been! Let us savour it in our imaginations. Such relief. Such unexpected joy to have found Jesus, who she had seen buried, alive again! Saying her name. This story also expresses something else that is wonderous. That even after being raised, Jesus remains personal, not coming with majesty and might, exacting vengeance on those who killed him. No, Jesus shows his cosmic- changing-risen-self to a woman he once healed, who had walked with him and stayed with him in his darkest hours. Extraordinary.
The reading from the Song of Songs on St. Mary Magdalene’s Feast Day is a beautiful echo of her journey from longing to revelation. This is our journey too.
… I looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him.
I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves. I looked for him but did not find him.
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city.
“Have you seen the one my heart loves?”
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one my heart loves… [20]
Mary Magdalene’s yearning expresses the yearning of our own hearts to find the One for whom our hearts long. The One who can heal and transform us, as he did with Mary. Twice. Once from the demons that possessed her and now here in the garden. In this moment, she is transformed from supporter and faithful follower to the first in all history to witness and experience the resurrected Jesus.
All encounters with Jesus move us outwards. Now Mary enters her journey’s fourth movement.
Jesus commissions Mary to go and tell the others.[21] Making a personal testament to the gathered disciples, including Peter and the disciple Jesus loved, Mary announces “I have seen the Lord” proclaiming his message to them. She is now the first witness, the first sent on mission by the resurrected Lord and first to announce that the world has changed. In declaring this she speaks not only to the Twelve and those with them, but to the whole of Creation. She is first among all humanity to announce those words into the world.
Mary holds a singular and privileged place as the first witness to the empty tomb, the first to encounter the Risen Lord and the first commissioned by him to tell the others. Mary’s courage and faithfulness to Jesus, her beloved Rabbouni is a gift to us all. Faithful love was her guide. On her Feast Day, may we be inspired to let Jesus heal all that ails our minds and spirits so we too may become new creations, proclaimers of God’s love for our suffering world. Mary shows us that being released from darkness comes from personal encounter with Jesus. May we open ourselves to our own encounter with the One who asks of us “Whom are you looking for? Let us ask this extraordinary woman to help us.
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[1] Ilia Delio The Primacy of Love p 69 2021
[2] Luke 8:2
[3] 2 Corinthians 5:17
[4] Jn 10:10
[5] Luke 8:3
[6] Luke 8:3
[7] Mark 15:40
[8] Mtt 27:56
[9] Jn 19:25
[10] Jn 19:26-27
[11] Mtt 27:61, Mk 15:47
[12] Lk 23:56
[13] Jn 20:2
[14] Jn 20:10
[15] Jn 20:12-13
[16] Jn 20:15
[17] Jn 20:15
[18] Jn 20:16
[19] Ilia Delio Easter Reflections 2025, World Institute for Science, Religion & Culture
[20] Song of Songs 3:1-4b
[21] Jn 20:17-18
