Year A

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene

Song of Songs 3:1 -4b

Psalm 63:2-6. 8-9

John 20:1-2.11-18

I have not yet ascended to the Father.

As I quoted from Isaiah 55:10-11 yesterday about God's word which when it comes out from his mouth does what the Father sent Him to do and then return to the Father, finishing his work on the Cross, he now has to ascend to the Father with the Glorified body.

Ascension is not levitation, it is rather entering the mystery of God. When he ascended a cloud took him, and the cloud is where God is hidden from us and yet closer to us. Not the cloud as what we see above us.

"The Cloud reminds us of the hour of the Transfiguration,...It reminds us of the hour of Mary's encounter with God's messenger, Gabriel, who announces to her the 'Overshadowing' with the power of the Most High (c.f.Luke 1:35);...It reminds us of the holy tent of God in the Old Covenant, where the cloud signified the Lord's presence (c.f. Exodus 40:34 to 35),... This reference to the cloud is unambiguously theological language. It present Jesus' departure, not as a journey to the Stars, but as his entry into the mystery of God."

(Jesus of Nazareth:Holy Week:From The Entrance into Jerusalem to The Resurrection, by Pope Benedict XVI)

So when he said to Mary Magdalene that she should not cling to him because he has not ascended to the Father, it tells us something important about this woman we are remembering today. The Greek word "hapto" used for cling means to hold with, touch or adhere to, thus as religion from the Latin word "religare" means to bind, she wanted to bind herself to him even while he had not yet entered the mystery of God, this shows the great faith she had in Jesus.

Looking at the theological language of the cloud that Pope Benedict XVI talks about, we see from Luke 24:51-54 that, it was when Jesus entered the mystery of God, that they worshiped him.

Luke 24:51-53

Now as he blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven.

They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy;

and they were continually in the Temple praising God.

Mary Magdalene wanted to worship him immediately after his resurrection, he wanted to be the first witness and preach of what John said in the beginning of his first letter that;

1 John 1:1
Something which has existed since the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have watched and touched with our own hands, the Word of life -- this is our theme.

And she became Apostle to the Apostles about the resurrected Jesus Christ. Her incident points to us why, Jesus is worthy of our worship and the reason why he is our Lord and our God. Mary Magdalene is teaching us to always worship God wholeheartedly. What she help us to recognize about Jesus is that, she need not enter the mystery of God to be worshipped, he is both fully man and fully God. And since he is God he deserves our worship.

So she could have chosen not to worship him because he had not entered into the mystery of God, but by doing so she reveals our Lord and God to us; the Word of life who also took flesh so that we can, hear, see and most importantly touch him and be healed from our problems. Don't forget to always worship God, for our worship to God adds nothing to his greatness but benefits us for our Salvation. God is who he is.

By

Sylvester Amakye-Quayson

The day's Lectionary Reading

Jeremiah 1:1,4-10

Psalm 71:1-2.3-4a.5-6ab.15ab and 17 (R. 15ab)

Matthew 13:1-9

Our Hearts must be opened to God's Mercy

As I quoted from Isaiah 55:10-11 yesterday about God's word which when it comes out from his mouth does what the Father sent Him to do, today we look at how the Kingdom he came to initiate is like and the obstacles to the Kingdom.

One thing I like about the picture I am using for today's reflection is the wound at the hand of the sower. It draws our attention to the resurrection power I talked about on Monday and lead us to understand why in the beginning of John's gospel, he talks about the Word of God who is also God. It also points to what John stresses about the Anti-Christ in his letters.

The seed is the word of God, and it has been sown in our hearts. But here is the twist, the seed has to die before it will germinate and grow. Now the one who believes that Jesus Christ; the Word of God, came in human form and possessing both human nature and God's nature, died and resurrected for our Salvation saves his soul.

So from the Parable where the evil one came to take the word out of the heart represented by the path, the seed which did not get the opportunity to die and germinate so that it will grow, points to the behavior of the Anti-Christ.

There is Truth, but to distort the Truth one needs to invent lies, and the lies leads to doubts. It is the doubts that lets the Word of God to be taken away from the heart which doubts that God could ever come in human form also. This heart seems to claim that God is not all powerful, and hence somethings are impossible even for the Creator of the Universe.

1 John 2:22- 23

Who is the liar, if not one who claims that Jesus is not the Christ? This is the Antichrist, who denies both the Father and the Son.Whoever denies the Son cannot have the Father either; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father too.

If the Kingdom of God has already been sown in our hearts, then we are like God, but just as after the liar brought doubts to our first parents concerning who they were, and what followed was the desire for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so to our desires does not give deep root to the faith we have in God.

It was the acting on their desires that led to the fall and hence loosing the property God gave humans, Paradise. That is why, the thorny land is about the properties we seek becoming obstacles to the word sown in our hearts growing. The properties we seek are less important than the one whe lost, so we must remember that we have been given a second chance to gain it. Jesus Christ has finished the work that was assigned to him. The Father's will that he completed on the Cross.

1 Peter 1:19-21

For you know that the price of your ransom from the futile way of life handed down from your ancestors was paid, not in anything perishable like silver or gold, but in precious blood as of a blameless and spotless lamb, Christ. He was marked out before the world was made, and was revealed at the final point of time for your sake.

Very often we deny the greatness of God when we escape the Cross. But if we realize that the word of God from our very beginnings like Jeremiah has been planted in our hearts, the liar or evil one will have a difficult time trying to take it from us, our desires will not be able to overcome it and neither will our properties also. From the very beginning of Jesus' mission John the Baptist shouted

John 1:29

... Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

He who is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world has already taken away our sin. "Knowing that Satan and his demons are defeated is one thing, appropriating the benefits of that defeat is quite another." God is merciful to us, he has sown his Kingdom in our hearts, it is left to us to have firm faith in God and we will overcome our problems.

By