Whoever thinks the bible is boring and old fashioned, probably hasn’t read very much of the bible. Today’s first reading for Mass from the Song of Songs is pretty racy:
“The bride says: On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves – I sought him but I did not find him. I will rise then and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him whom my heart loves. I sought him but I did not find him. The watchmen came upon me, as they made their rounds of the city; Have you seen him whom my heart loves? I had hardly left them when I found him whom my heart loves.”
This reading is fitting because today is the Memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene. She was thought to have been a prostitute before her conversion. This reading depicts in a similar way, how she found Jesus and came to love him. It is a beautiful reading. Women who are prostitutes or promiscuous often have low self esteem. Jesus looked through all the surface things about a person though, including the state of sins on their soul, and saw their inner beauty instead. If Mary Magdalene was indeed a prostitute, then Jesus showed her what real love was. She didn’t know what genuine love was, until she encountered Jesus Christ.
We need to learn to do this better ourselves. Look through the sins and the surface aspects of people and see the inner beauty of their soul. That’s really hard to do sometimes, but those who succeed at doing this, become like Christ. Mother Theresa became a saint by doing this with the sick and dying. She looked through everything else, dirt, filth, sins, religion, etc. and saw only Jesus reflected in the faces of the poor.
The morals in our modern world has deteriorated a lot in the past 100 years. There are a lot of single men and women who do not really know what genuine love is, and they seek love in temporary, fleeting relationships. Some people spend their entire lives looking for love and never finding it.
The definition of real love though, is to seek the ultimate good of another person. This was the absolute essence of Jesus Christ. This simple statement applies to every relationship in our lives, not just the romantic relationships. Do we seek the good of the other? Or what is good for us? The second greatest commandment calls us to balance the two.
The alternate second reading today from the 2nd Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians talks about regarding no one according to the flesh. We are a new creation in Christ and the old things have passed away and new things have come. This reading also illustrates Saint Mary Magdalene’s life and her conversion perfectly.
Isn’t this verse from the third choice for the second reading for Mass from the prophet Micah beautiful? He is speaking about God when he says:
“You will cast into the depths of the sea all of our sins.”
Can you picture your sins like a heavy rock that is thrown into the deepest part of the ocean, never to be seen again? How beautiful can that be, for any of us? This is also a beautiful gift to give to another person as well, to forgive their offense and cast it so far away from your mind and heart that it disappears into the forgotten past. It is truly freeing for a person who is on the receiving end of this deep, and genuine act of forgiveness.
We’ve heard the story about Mary Magdalene going to Jesus’s tomb on Easter morning, crying her eyes out with grief over his death, many times. Her grief turned to joy when she realized Jesus was alive. But there might still be a little something we may have missed. Remember when the gospel said that Mary thought the risen Christ was the gardener? She didn’t recognize him. All she physically saw was his outward appearance, until he spoke to her. The same thing happened with the disciples who encountered Christ when they were traveling to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize Christ’s physical appearance, but only knew him in the breaking of the bread.
Today’s scriptures for Mass is a powerful lesson that people are not what they seem to be, by looking at their outward appearance. We are all as different from one another as our fingerprints, but we are also a unique human being inside too. The beautiful and eternal part of our souls, is the true treasure each one of us carry within us. Jesus loves this part of us, the person that no one else really knows very well. You can live with a person a lifetime and still not really know them. One detail about their life, discovered many years down the road can change your entire perspective of who that person really is.
Jesus knows the story of our lives like no one else ever will. He understands us like no one else ever will. It is important to remember that Jesus sees through it all. Our image that we project to others, our secrets, our brokenness and our faults and imperfections. But it is a beautiful thing that he loves us just as deeply as he did Mary Magdalene. That is the beautiful thing about Christ’s disciples too, they were not perfect either. Perhaps Jesus chose them, including Mary Magdalene, for this reason, so we would know that we do not have to be perfect either, for him to love us.
Daily Mass Readings:
Song of Songs 3: 1-46 / 2 Corinthians 5: 14-17 / Psalm 63 / Micah 7: 14-15, 18-20 / Psalm 85 / John 20: 1-2, 11-18
