Readings of the Day
Rule of Saint Benedict: Ch 43:1-12 Tardiness at the Work of God or at Table
Mass: Songs 3:1-4b or 2 Cor 5:14-17; Resp Ps 63; Jn 20:1-2, 11-18
My soul clings fast to you.
MARY, QUEEN OF PEACE,
PRAY FOR US.
I seek Him whom my heart loves.
(Songs 3:2)
About today's photo. It is one of my favorite holy cards, an image of a 14th century fresco at the Sacro Speco, the holy cave at Subiaco, Italy, about 30 miles east of Rome, where Saint Benedict lived for three years. It is the apparition of Jesus to Mary Magdalene. Stop holding on to me, says the Lord, for I have not yet ascended to my Father (Jn 20:17). O, we sing, you are my God whom I seek; for my flesh pines and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water (Ps 63). We look, then, to the following homily by Pope Saint Great Gregory the Great and remember the words of the Lord to the Prophet Isaiah, words Our Lord says to each one of us: I have called you by name, you are mine (Is 43:1). United in faith and prayer, we keep on searching, "for the love of Christ impels us" (2 Cor 5:14).
Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognized when He calls her "woman"; so He calls her by name; as though He were saying: Recognize me as I recognize you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognizes who is speaking. She immediately calls Him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.
(From a homily on the Gospels by Gregory the Great, pope, in Office of Readings, July 22)
I have seen the Lord.
(Jn 20:18)
SAINT MARY MAGDALENE,
PRAY FOR US.
© Gertrude Feick 2022
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