St. Mary Magdalene, sister of St. Lazarus and St. Martha was a close friend of Jesus. What did she see in Jesus’ eyes? Reprimand? Yes, but also immense compassion. And the life of sin soon began to become unbearable for her.
Newsroom (Gaudium Press) In the absence of historical documents giving us details about the life of Mary Magdalene, we will make some considerations about her based on the visions of the German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, beatified by St. John Paul II in October 2004.
In childhood, praise and pampering
According to the revelations received by the Blessed Virgin, Mary belonged to a wealthy family which owned a lot of land in Judea. One of them was next to the Temple in Jerusalem, the main place of pilgrimage for the Jewish people and, consequently, a place where many people were constantly passing through.
Little Mary was very beautiful, and her mother pampered her to the point of displaying her in a window, sitting on cushions and dressed in beautiful clothes, so that she could be seen and praised by passers-by. This contributed to the worm of vanity developing in the girl’s soul, leading her to indulge in pride and self-contempt from an early age….
Another factor had a decisive influence on the course of her life: the death of her parents when she was still very young. When the estate was divided among her siblings – Lazarus, Martha, and another sister, whose name is not mentioned in the Gospel – Mary was given a castle in the village of Magdala in Galilee. She went there with her servants when she was only eleven years old. Without an ideal to guide her decisions, and with little inclination to follow the advice of those who tried to guide her towards the good, Mary ended up sinking into the worst vices, always seeking to fulfill the desires of her self-love.
The meeting with the Master
While Magdalene spent her time and fortune in futile amusements, her brothers Lazarus and Martha drew nearer and nearer to Jesus. As they both owned a spacious castle at Bethany, near Jerusalem, they offered lodging to the Master as he was on his way to be baptized by John the Baptist. It was on this occasion that Martha first spoke to Jesus about Mary, expressing her concern. Our Lord encouraged her to remain steadfast in her prayers for her sister, strengthening her in the hope that she would be made right.
After some time, Martha succeeded in persuading Mary to go to Jesus, who was then in Jezrael in Galilee. However, as the Divine Redeemer’s passage through that city lasted only a few hours, the sisters were unable to see him.
Shortly afterwards, again urged by Martha, the young woman agreed and accompanied her to a place where Jesus had stopped with his disciples to preach to the people and perform miracles. At a certain moment, when Mary found herself in the inn, she went out to a window to observe the movement and came upon the Master walking with his people. “He looked at her seriously as he passed by, and his gaze penetrated her soul”.
A contemporary author rightly comments: “What was in those eyes? Reprimand? Yes, reproach; but also compassion, immense compassion. Life became unbearable for her”. From that moment on, “each sin engraved that look deeper in her memory”.
It was some time before, at her sister’s insistence, Mary gave in again and went to the place where Our Lord was going to preach. “Inwardly she was confused and caught up in a mental battle”. “When Jesus appeared and began to speak, her eyes and her soul were focused on him alone.” Hearing the words of our Lord, Mary’s sister, was a great help. Listening to Our Lord’s words and witnessing the healings he performed softened that hard heart, which from then on, without knowing exactly why, sought to draw closer to the Master.
Your Many Sins are Forgiven
The occasion arose when a Pharisee invited Jesus to his house for a banquet (cf. Lk 7:36-50). As the seer recounts, Mary noticed that the Redeemer had not received, either before or during the meal, any gesture of honor, any respectful attention commonly directed to guests. This led her to take the action mentioned by the Evangelist: “She brought an alabaster jar full of perfume; and standing behind him at his feet, she began to weep. Soon her tears bathed the Lord’s feet, and she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with the perfume” (Lk 7:37-38).
Mary wanted to express her repentance and beg forgiveness, but she could not. Her words were drowned in tears. All she could do was kiss her Savior’s feet and weep, not sure whether from love or pain.
Looking down, she hears Our Lord ask the Pharisee: “A creditor had two debtors: one owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty. When they had nothing to pay, he forgave them both their debt. Which of them will love him more?” (Lk 7:41-42).
How these words must have resonated in Magdalene’s soul!
And then she dared to look up… finding that gaze which had once rebuked her now transformed into an ocean of candor and goodness. Turning to her, Jesus says to the Pharisee: “Do you see this woman? I came into your house, and you gave me no water to wash my feet; but this woman with her tears watered my feet, and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman has not stopped kissing my feet since she entered. […] Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven her, because she has shown much love” (Lk 7:44-45, 47).
Oh, marvel! As Mary washed the Savior’s feet, her soul was purified; as she anointed them with balm, the pleasant odor of divine forgiveness flooded her. And the Lord confirmed all that she felt in her soul, saying to her: “Thy sins are forgiven thee. [Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Lk 7:48-50).
First to announce the Resurrection
From then on, Magdalene “followed Jesus wherever he went, sat at his feet, stayed near him or waited for him everywhere. She thought only of Him, there was only Him before her eyes, and she regarded her Redeemer only in the face of her own sins. She accompanied him to the supreme hour of his Passion and Death: “Standing by the Cross of Jesus were his Mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene” (Jn 19:25). And after the “consummatum est”, she remained by the Body of the Master until the moment when Our Lady helped, with all care and delicacy, to embalm and bury him, distancing herself from the tomb only because of the dangers of the night.
However, burning with love for our Lord, Mary Magdalene could not contain her desire to be near his Sacred Body to embalm it once more. Therefore, the day after the burial, still at dawn (cf. Jn 20:1), she went to the tomb. But what was his astonishment when he saw that the Body had been “stolen”… It was the consummation of the separation, which brought with it the refinement of pain.
Such was her eagerness to find the Body that, even when she was questioned by the Angels, she did not ask whether it was heavenly spirits speaking to her; all she wanted to know was where the Beloved was: “For they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (Jn 20:13). Mary fears nothing and is ready to overcome any difficulty. She demonstrates this when, without recognizing the Master in the one who asks her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?”, she replies: “Lord, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him” (Jn 20:15).
However, when he calls her by name – “Mary!” (Jn 20:16) – a series of memories, impressions, graces and charms come back to her. How much would she have missed hearing this “Mary”?
Such was her intimacy with our Lord that her first impulse was to throw herself at his feet and embrace him. Jesus did not need to show her his hands and side, as he would later do with the disciples, in order to prove to them that he was not a ghost (cf. Lk 24:37). “Mary does not even question the fact that he had died and risen again: it was he, the Master”.
Seeing her strong faith and not wanting to take away her merit, the Redeemer does not allow her to touch him, but sends her as the first herald of the Resurrection: “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am going up to my Father and your Father, my God and your God'” (Jn 20:17).
“Arise, my beloved, and come!”
After the Resurrection, the Evangelists no longer mention Mary Magdalene. However, “an abundant tradition takes her to the desert and even brings her with the Jewish diaspora to the shores of Marseilles”. According to the story, during the persecutions that took place in the years after the Ascension of the Lord, Mary Magdalene, together with her brothers Martha and Lazarus, were put on a boat and left adrift on the high seas, to be shipwrecked and buried by the waters. But God arranged for them to land in France.
Once in Marseilles, St. Mary Magdalene preached the name of Jesus ardently. After converting many to the Christian religion, there was nothing else that appealed to her in this world. Far from her Beloved, any corner of the earth was exile for her. How could she make up for this longing and shorten the great distance that separated her from Heaven?
It was in the desert that Mary found her way. Once there, she took up residence in a place prepared by the Angels themselves! And there she remained incognito for thirty years.
At the end of this long period of heavenly conviviality and penance for the sins of her past life, there was nothing left for the Magdalene but to fulfill her old desire: to throw herself once again at the feet of Jesus, to embrace them and kiss them with all her love. On the occasion of the Resurrection, Our Lord had prevented her, claiming that he had not yet ascended to the Father (cf. Jn 20:17). Now, however, the problem was different: Jesus was already with the Father; she had to go and meet him.
It is said that the angelic spirits took her to Bishop Maximino, who gave her Holy Communion. Then, lying down before the altar, Mary Magdalene gave her soul to God and was able to be with her Beloved forever.
Text taken from Heralds of the Gospel Magazine no. 235, July 2021. By Victor Andrei Prado.
