DAILY GOSPEL: 22/07/2010
«Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.» John 6,68
Saint Mary Magdalene - Memorial
Second Letter to the Corinthians 5:14-17.
For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died.
He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.
So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.
Psalms 63:2.3-4.5-6.8-9.
O God, you are my God-- for you I long! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, Like a land parched, lifeless, and without water.
So I look to you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory.
For your love is better than life; my lips offer you worship!
I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands, calling on your name.
My soul shall savor the rich banquet of praise, with joyous lips my mouth shall honor you!
That you indeed are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy.
My soul clings fast to you; your right hand upholds me.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 20:1-2.11-18.
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him."
But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they laid him."
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" She thought it was the gardener and said to him, "Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni," which means Teacher.
Jesus said to her, "Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and what he told her.
For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died.
He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer.
So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.
Psalms 63:2.3-4.5-6.8-9.
O God, you are my God-- for you I long! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, Like a land parched, lifeless, and without water.
So I look to you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory.
For your love is better than life; my lips offer you worship!
I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands, calling on your name.
My soul shall savor the rich banquet of praise, with joyous lips my mouth shall honor you!
That you indeed are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy.
My soul clings fast to you; your right hand upholds me.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 20:1-2.11-18.
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him."
But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they laid him."
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" She thought it was the gardener and said to him, "Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni," which means Teacher.
Jesus said to her, "Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and what he told her.
Jn 20,1-2#Jn 20,11-18
Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Sermons on Saint john's Gospel; no.121, 3 ; PL 35
Spiritually touching Christ
«Jesus said to her: «Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.» These words contain a truth we need to consider attentively. Jesus is teaching faith to this woman who had recognised him as her Lord and given him this title. The divine gardener was sowing a grain of mustard seed in Mary Magdalene's heart just as he would have done in a garden... So what does it mean: «Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father»?...
By these words Jesus intended that faith in him, faith by which he is touched spiritually, should extend even as far as believing that he and his Father are one (Jn 10,30). Because whoever proceeds into him until they recognize him to be equal to his Father rises up to the Father, after a fashion, within the depths of their soul. Otherwise Christ is not touched as he desires; in other words, we do not have the faith in him he is asking for.
Mary could have believed in him while still not thinking him to be the Father's equal, which is what these words prevent her doing: «Stop holding on to me.» Namely: «Don't believe in me according to your present mind. Don't stop short at thinking about what I became for your sake without rising up to consider him by whom you were made.» How could she not believe - as yet in an only too human fashion - him for whom she wept simply as a man? «I have not yet risen to my Father.» «You will touch me when you believe that I am God and am wholly equal to the Father.»
By these words Jesus intended that faith in him, faith by which he is touched spiritually, should extend even as far as believing that he and his Father are one (Jn 10,30). Because whoever proceeds into him until they recognize him to be equal to his Father rises up to the Father, after a fashion, within the depths of their soul. Otherwise Christ is not touched as he desires; in other words, we do not have the faith in him he is asking for.
Mary could have believed in him while still not thinking him to be the Father's equal, which is what these words prevent her doing: «Stop holding on to me.» Namely: «Don't believe in me according to your present mind. Don't stop short at thinking about what I became for your sake without rising up to consider him by whom you were made.» How could she not believe - as yet in an only too human fashion - him for whom she wept simply as a man? «I have not yet risen to my Father.» «You will touch me when you believe that I am God and am wholly equal to the Father.»
St. Mary Magdalene - Memorial
SAINT MARY MAGDALEN
Memorial
Memorial
Or the earlier life of Mary Magdalen we know only that she was "a woman who was a sinner." From the depth of her degradation she raised her eyes to Jesus with sorrow, hope, and love. All covered with shame, she came in where Jesus was at meat, and knelt behind him. She said not a word, but bathed his feet with her tears, wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed them in humility, and at their touch her sins and her stain were gone. Then she poured on them the costly unguent prepared for far other uses; and his own divine lips rolled away her reproach, spoke her absolution, and bade her go in peace.
Thenceforward she ministered to Jesus, sat at his feet, and heard his words. She was one of the family "whom Jesus so loved" that He raised her brother Lazarus from the dead. Once again, on the eve of his Passion, she brought the precious ointment, and, now purified and beloved, poured it on his head, and the whole house of God is still filled with the fragrance of her anointing. She stood with Our Lady and St. John at the foot of the cross, the representative of the many who have had much forgiven.
To her first, after his blessed Mother, and through her to his apostles, Our Lord gave the certainty of his resurrection; and to her first He made Himself known, calling her by her name.
According to French tradition when the faithful were scattered by persecution the family of Bethany found refuge in Provence. The cave in which St. Mary lived for thirty years is still seen, and the chapel on the mountaintop, in which she was caught up daily, like St. Paul, to "visions and revelations of the Lord." When her end drew near she was borne to a spot still marked by a "sacred pillar," where the holy Bishop Maximin awaited her; and when she had received her Lord, she peacefully fell asleep in death.
************************************
She longed for Christ, though she thought he had been taken away
When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and did not find the Lord's body, she thought it had been taken away and so informed the disciples. After they came and saw the tomb, they too believed what Mary had told them. The text then says:The disciples went back home, and it adds: but Mary wept and remained standing outside the tomb.
We should reflect on Mary's attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us:Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.
At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.
Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.
Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognised when he calls her "woman"; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognise me as I recognise you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognises who is speaking. She immediately calls him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.
Saint Gregory the Great (c.540-604), Pope, Doctor of the Church (Homily on the Gospel of John; PL 76, 1189-1193)
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894] &The Liturgy of the Hours
Father,
your Son first entrusted to Mary Magdalene
the joyful news of his resurrection.
By her prayers and example
may we proclaim Christ as our living Lord
and one day see him in glory.
your Son first entrusted to Mary Magdalene
the joyful news of his resurrection.
By her prayers and example
may we proclaim Christ as our living Lord
and one day see him in glory.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario