Jn 20:16: “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher).”

A reflection recorded for the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, which the Church keeps on 22 July.

She is the woman out of whom the Lord cast seven demons (Lk 8:2); the one who stood at the foot of the Cross when almost everyone else had gone; the first human being to see the Risen Christ, and the first to be sent to tell the others. Ancient tradition gives her a title no other woman of the Gospel carries: apostola apostolorum, the Apostle to the Apostles.

In the garden she does not recognise Him. She takes Him for the gardener and asks where the body has been put. What opens her eyes is not an argument and not a miracle — it is her own name, spoken by Him. That is the whole of Christian experience in a single word.

If you would like to read about her life in the Gospels, what the saints and the Church say of her, and how she came to be honoured as a saint, there is a full article here on the site: Saint Mary Magdalene: the Apostle to the Apostles.

Sancta Maria Magdalena, ora pro nobis.