Daily Readings for: July 22, 2013
(Readings on USCCB website)
Collect: O God, whose Only Begotten Son entrusted Mary Magdalene before all others with announcing the great joy of the Resurrection, grant, we pray, that through her intercession and example we may proclaim the living Christ and come to see him reigning in your glory. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
RECIPES
ACTIVITIES
o Family and Friends of Jesus Scrapbook Album
PRAYERS
o Litany of St. Mary Magdalene
Ordinary Time: July 22nd
Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene
Old Calendar: St. Mary Magdalen, penitent
Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, wasted the great beauty that God had given her in a life of sin, but one day she saw Christ and was touched by grace. On the day of our Lord's crucifixion, she stood with the Mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross. At early dawn on the first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene and other women who had ministered to Jesus went to the Lord's sepulcher. Two angels said to them, "He is not here, but is risen....Go, tell his disciples." Mary Magdalene ran to tell the Apostles what she had seen and heard. Then Peter and John, hastening to the sepulcher, saw and believed.
St. Mary Magdalene
The feast of St. Mary Magdalene is considered one of the most mystical of feasts, and it is said that of all the songs of the saints, that of Mary Magdalene is the sweetest and strongest because her love was so great. That love was praised by Jesus Himself who said that because much was forgiven her, she loved much. Where she is buried, no one knows. Legend has her dying in Provence, France, in a cavern where she spent her last days, and her body resting in the chapel of St. Maximin in the Maritime Alps. Another has her buried in Ephesus where she went with St. John after the Resurrection. This latter view is more likely, and St. Willibald, the English pilgrim to the Holy Land in the eighth century, was shown her tomb there.
She was the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus, His most ardent and loving follower. She had stood with Mary at the foot of the Cross on that brutal Good Friday afternoon and had been by the side of Mary during these difficult hours. On Easter morning, she went with the other women to the tomb and it was there, in the garden near the tomb, that Jesus appeared to her. It was she who brought the news of the Resurrection to the Apostles, and Peter and John raced to the tomb to see what had happened.
She was from Magadala, a small fishing town on the Sea of Galilee, between Capernaum and Tiberias. She was known to be a "great sinner," a woman of the streets who heard Jesus speak of the mercy and forgiveness of God and changed her life completely. Her matter-of-fact witness to the Resurrection moved Peter and John to go and see for themselves: "I have seen the Lord and these things he said to me." Jesus had chosen her to bring the news to them and she simply told them what had happened.
She has always been the example of great love and great forgiveness, one of those close to Jesus who grasped the truth of God's love for human beings and spent her life bearing witness to that love.
Excerpted from The One Year Book of Saints by Rev. Clifford Stevens
Patron: Apothecaries; Casamicciola, Italy; contemplative life; contemplatives; converts; druggists; glove makers; hairdressers; hairstylists; penitent sinners; penitent women; people ridiculed for their piety; perfumeries; perfumers; pharmacists; reformed prostitutes; sexual temptation; tanners; women.
Symbols: Rich rainment; box of ointment; skull; book; vase of sweet spices; crucifix; open book; boat.
Things to Do:
- From the Catholic Culture library: Who Really Was Mary Magdalene?
- Witnesses to Calvary: Reflections on the Seven Last Words of Jesus by Fr. Richard C. Antall is an interesting and thoughtful look at St. Mary Magdalene's place at the foot of the cross. He contrasts her deliverance from seven demons with the symetry of the Seven Words.