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Archbishop Banda’s Homily, Tuesday in the Easter Octave

 

Today, we reflect on Mary Magdalene. She gave up her sinful past to become the ardent follower of Jesus. She is the one from whom the seven demons were cast out. She is the one who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears at the house of Simon the Pharisee.

Mary Magdalene accepted Jesus as the Master and Lord of her life and maintained a more loving and experiential level of relationship with Jesus. She followed Him until to the foot of the cross along with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. She saw where He was buried.

As she went to the tomb on Sunday early in the morning when the Sabbath was over with spices and perfumes she had prepared, she did not find the body of Jesus. The immediate thought that came to her mind was that somebody had stolen her master’s body. This somebody could have been the soldiers who were guarding the tomb, or the enemies or even the gardener.

However, the angels whom she met inside the tomb asked her why she was crying. She said: “They have taken my Lord away. I don’t know where they have put Him”. In this moment Jesus called her by name and she recognized Him. She turned towards Him and says Rabbouni. But Jesus said, “Don’t cling on to me”, however, entrusted to her with the mission of “telling” His disciples.

Resurrection demands from us a new relationship with Jesus. A relationship that calls us from worldly and physical clinging for solace to a new relationship of worship at a higher Level. Christ reveals Himself to those who seek Him earnestly. The Master is ever ready to fulfill the desires and longings of the souls of His beloved. He will never abandon them. He reveals Himself in manifold ways.

Mary put her hope in Jesus, both in life and in death. In Mary we see the manifestation of the common adage: “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future”. May we also put our hope in Jesus in-season and out-of-season until we hear Him calling us by name.

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