I saw the feast of Mary Magdalene described as a little Easter in ordinary time on twitter today. I felt after the Lent and Easter that the world experienced this year this description of this beloved saint was very fitting.
I remember on Easter Sunday morning waking and watching the sun rise in such stillness perpetuated by the lockdown situation which hung thick in the air. The sound of a busy town silenced seemed a fitting way to imagine the echo of the loudness heard and felt after the violence of Good Friday.
After all the crowds had gone, after the body of Jesus was laid in that cold tomb, I imagine Mary Magdalene slipping down to its location, wrapped in the comfort of the thin dawn light to glimpse and hold the memories of the man who changed her life, who transformed her.
Mary hangs around the tomb weeping and it made me think about the things that we’ve wept over, the memories that we have stood next to and wept and poured ourselves out over. It made me think about the tombs in our lives have we have that we stand near and mourn, waiting, searching for light and hope
Jesus transforms Mary’s sorrow as he bursts into the present and calls Mary by name. Suddenly he reaches into death and pulls her from darkness into light, and there in the breaking dawn she sees the power of love that death cannot stop, love that cannot be drowned even in the streams of tears that fell from her eyes.
There in the new daylight, the sun burning aflame like Mary’s heart that beats with joy and love in her chest as she stands with the man who kept his promise, to be with her and us always.
And then after her adoration she turns and becomes the Apostle to the Apostles and she proclaims “I have seen the Lord”.
May the Lord greet us as we weep at the tombs of the things heavy on our hearts, that in this little Easter we experience the fresh light and love from the one who knows and calls us by name, drawing us from darkness to light, aflame in love.
Sitting at the well 