The Memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene
By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn't find him. I will get up now, and go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn't find him. The watchmen who go about the city found me; "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" I had scarcely passed from them, When I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go, Until I had brought him into my mother's house, Into the room of her who conceived me.
So I have seen you in the sanctuary, Watching your power and your glory.
Because your loving kindness is better than life, My lips shall praise you. So I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips, When I remember you on my bed, And think about you in the night watches.
My soul stays close to you. Your right hand holds me up. But those who seek my soul to destroy it Shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went early, while it was still dark, to the tomb, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Therefore she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have laid him!"
But Mary was standing outside at the tomb weeping. So as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb, And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. They asked her, "Woman, why are you weeping?"
She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, and didn't know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?"
She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."
Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned and said to him, "Rabboni!" which is to say, "Teacher!"
Jesus said to her, "Don't hold me, for I haven't yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.
Mary Magdalene holds a singular place in the story of our faith — she is the first witness to the Resurrection, the one tradition calls *apostola apostolorum*, the apostle to the apostles. That title isn't ceremonial. It means something.
Notice how both the Song of Songs and John's Gospel are structured around the same aching movement: seeking, not finding, and then — suddenly — recognition. The beloved in Song of Songs searches the darkened city streets, asking strangers, desperate. Mary stands weeping outside an empty tomb, asking a man she takes to be a gardener. The emotional texture is identical: love that refuses to stop looking even when looking feels hopeless.
There's something worth sitting with here. Mary doesn't find Jesus by reasoning her way to the Resurrection. She doesn't arrive at him through an argument. She recognizes him when he speaks her name. *Mary.* One word. And everything changes.
This is how God tends to work with us — not through grand announcements, but through the specific and intimate. The way a particular piece of music undoes us. The way a friend's voice on a hard afternoon feels like water. God reaches us in the register of the personal.
The tension in this feast is that Mary is then told not to hold on. She has to release what she's just recovered. The gift arrives and immediately asks something of her — go, tell, be sent. Love, in the Gospel, never stays private for long.
Psalm 63 captures the disposition underneath all of this: a soul that stays close, that seeks even through the night watches, that finds its deepest satisfaction not in having all the answers but in the presence itself.
Consider what that kind of seeking looks like in your own life right now.
Where are you still standing outside an empty tomb, weeping and waiting?
And when your name is spoken — in whatever quiet way it reaches you — will you recognize the voice?