A reading of the holy gospel according to John. Early in the morning, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been moved away, so she ran off to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, one that Jesus loved, and of course, that is John who's writing this, and said to them, the Lord has been taken from the tomb, and we do not know where they have put him. Mary stood weeping beside the tomb. Even as she wept, she stooped to look inside, and there she saw two angels in dazzling robes.
One was seated at the head and the other at the foot of the place where Jesus' body had lain. Woman, they said to her, why are you weeping? Mary answered and said, because the Lord has been taken away, and I do not know where they have put him. She had no sooner said this than she turned around and caught sight of Jesus standing there, but she did not know him. Woman, he asked her, why are you weeping?
Who is it you are looking for? Mary supposed that it was a gardener, so she said to him, sir, if you are the one who carried him off, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. And Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned to him and said in Hebrew, rabboni, meaning teacher. Jesus then said, do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to my father.
Rather, go to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to my father and to your father, to my god and to your god. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples and announced, I have seen the lord. And then she reported everything that had been said to her. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. Well, my friends, if you want a a good puzzle, try figuring out the great mystery of the three Marys. Now, I'm not going to give you a solution to it. Let us begin at the end, sort of. The western church, that's the church we belong to.
Quite generally, not universally, quite generally that from the time of Gregory the Great, which is the sixth century, he died about 06/2004. So from the time about of Saint Gregory the Great, the sixth century, write down the present this the liturgy of this mass, incorporates this thinking. The three Marys, that is, you have the following. You have the repentant woman. You know the woman who came to Christ and washed his feet and she said and he said, your sins are forgiven.
Don't go out and sin anymore. Notice her name is not given. So that's the first person involved here with the three Marys. The second Mary is the mother is the sister of Lazarus and Martha. This is the Mary of Bethany, the the little town near Jerusalem, where our blessed lord went and Mary sat at his feet and Martha did all the slaving in the kitchen and complained to Jesus.
Tell Mary to to help me. And then you have the third Mary, Mary of Magdala. Now Magdala is a fishing village up on the Western shore of the Sea Of Galilee up near Tiberias. That's up in the North. And as far as names go, that is definitely Mary Magdala, Mary of Magdala.
So you have then the repentant sinner. You have Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha. We may might call her the mystic who sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to his words while her sister Martha was very active in hospitality. And then you have Mary Magdalene, Mary of Magdalene, who was an extremely practical woman. She was a woman of service.
This is the Mary who, with some other women up in the North, served Jesus and his disciples, contributed to their upkeep, and looked after their wants. This is the Mary Magdalene who as we today read, she was the first at the tomb to look after the body of Christ. She is the one who was standing at the foot of the cross with Mary, mother of Jesus, and the beloved disciple. This we're sure of. This is Mary of Magdalene.
This is Mary Magdalene. This is the woman of of who sees a job that needs to be done and does it calmly, thoughtfully, and I might say relentlessly because she wasn't taking no for an answer. You see how practical she here she sees an empty tube and notice she doesn't there's no expression of surprise or anything. She says, look, tell me where you put the body and I will take it from you. See, practical.
Practical has to do with doing, with performing. So you have these three Marys. Now who are they? Are they three separate separate people? People?
Are Are they they all all one? Or are they two or what? Well, in a sense you can take your pick. Since the time of Gregory the Great in the western church, not in the eastern churches, the three have been put together so that Mary Magdalene becomes the repentant sinner and becomes also in some way identified with the sister of Martha and of Lazarus. Now, as far as I did a little research on this, you know this isn't off the cuff.
I don't have this kind of stuff running around in my head. But as far as I could find out yesterday from the latest documents like the New Catholic Encyclopedia and two commentaries, recent commentaries, here is the best thinking on the subject. You have three persons, persons, three separate people. You have the unknown Mary. You see, that name is given to her because of the anointings and things.
I mean, I'm not trying to go into why these identifications there is reason for the this identification. It isn't just all up in somebody's head. So you have, first of all, the repentant sinner. That doesn't mean he was a prostitute. There are plenty of other ways of committing sin.
Then you have Mary, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus, and then you have Mary Magdalene. The best thinking today is to keep them all separate, three separate people. Now the liturgy doesn't do that. The the liturgy of the Western church puts them together, and we have the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene on July 22. Now one of the ways of solving a problem is to eliminate the problem.
And in eliminating the problem for practical purposes, I think we can do simply this. And we're doing what the church is doing, really. But I would like to repeat, the best thinking on this subject is that you have three separate persons, Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, and the repentant woman, the sinner who was given the name Mary. Now look at these three dear ladies. One is the repentant sinner.
The other, Mary of Bethany, mystic, the the the person given to prayer, to contemplation. Then you have Mary Magdala, the woman of affairs, the woman who sees a job that needs to be done, rolls up her sleeves, and gets going on it. Without thinking of herself, without thinking of the cost, without thinking of the labor, she digs in and does the job. Notice how practical she is at the tomb. There's a great mystery here.
Why didn't she recognize Jesus? Why does she recognize him only? This is certainly Mary of Magdala. Why does she recognize him only when he says Mary, the name, the name? I've often thought how important a name is.
Here's just another illustration of it. The whole the whole glory of the resurrection focuses in on Christ calling this woman by her name Mary. And so we have here three aspects of the Christian life. And as I said Sunday most eloquently, of course, as I tried to stress, when you talk about the Christian being a Martha or the Christian being a Mary, that is the Christian giving himself or herself contemplative, to the to the life of withdrawing from the world, of silent prayer, a private devotion, of an inner seeking of God, of union with God, as opposed to the Christian who is outgoing, who's in the affairs of the world, who's who's out there trying to make a living, who's out there trying to serve god through the actual day in and day out affairs of life. As I tried to point out Sunday, this is not a question of us being either a Mary or a Martha.
That would be relatively simple. The great thrust, the great challenge of being a Christian is that we put them together, that we are simultaneously a Martha and a Mary. We don't divorce them. We don't separate them. We don't put a chasm, a gulf, a canyon.
We don't do that. We must coalesce them in our daily living. There has to be a time for activity. There has to be a time for withdrawal from the world. There has to be a time for great penetration into the affairs of life, and there has to be a time of quiet thought, of retreat, where we give God a chance to speak, where there is a dialogue.
And now with these three Marys, here you have, I think, three great elements that have to be associated in our lives, in my life. Repentance. We are not told what this woman was a sinner for. Remember, you could become a sinner very easily in those days. You could become a sinner just by having a meal with a Roman.
You could become a sinner simply by entering a Roman's house. So it was very easy to be a sinner. You didn't have to work at it very hard. You don't do have to do it today either. But the point is when we are told that this woman was a sinner who came to anoint Christ's feet, don't jump to conclusions.
But she was a sinner and she's repentant. And because she's repentant, she comes to Christ. That's a very important little point. It isn't a post factum thing. So we all need repentance.
We all need to go to god and say, oh lord, have mercy on me for I am a sinner. We are all publicans, believe me. And if we don't recognize it, we better take a second look and a third look and then get out a stick of dynamite and blow up and see what's inside of us. So we are all in the category of the repentant Mary. And then you have Mary of Bethany who sits at Jesus' feet and listens to his words.
Do we ever do that? Or are we so active? Are we so full of words? Are we so gung ho about telling god everything he ought to know that we don't give god a chance to tell us something that we ought to know. And then thirdly, you have the Mary of Magdalene, the woman of affairs, the woman of service, the woman who sees the needs and gets at it and gives her all to solving those needs for the love of Christ.
This is the frightfully important difference between mere service to humanity, between being a mere humanitarian. I do not say that sarcastically. But I'm saying that the difference between being a humanitarian, being a philanthropist, and the charity of Christ is simply enormous. There is no bridge between the two except the grace of God. They are totally different things, and a Christian is not called upon to be a great humanitarian.
To call a Christian, that is to demean him and to make him something which he has no business being. A Christian is called upon to express in his life the love of Christ, the charity of Christ, which is a totally different thing. It's the love of humanity, of human beings because of god. You love god first, and you put them where they belong. And so the church joins these three Marys together.
Let's us do that. These are three great attributes of a truly devoted person, a person who is devoted to Jesus Christ, that they are, first of all, repentant and and loving. Secondly, that they are contemplative and prayerful. And third, that they are active in the service of Jesus Christ for the love of god, loving themselves, and loving their neighbor. In the name of the father and of the son, holy spirit.
Amen.