Obviously Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ personal friends and disciples, was not one of the twelve apostles. Yet St. Thomas Aquinas called her the “Apostle of the Apostles.” Why? Because, according to John’s Gospel (20: 1-18), she was the first to see the Risen Jesus and to tell the apostles “I have seen the Lord.” May St. Mary Magdalene join us today in praying for the Holy Father and the Church, that we may take seriously our responsibility to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to everyone we meet. He is the hope of our world and we will only be able to promote education, justice, solidarity, and peace if we are strong in hope. Our reflection is from part of a homily of Pope John Paul II given on this day in the Jubilee Year 2000.

We are celebrating the feast of St Mary Magdalene and the liturgy today is marked by a kind of movement, a "race" of the heart and the spirit, motivated by the love of Christ. The words of St Paul, "caritas Christi urget nos" (2 Cor 5: 14), which we will shortly hear in the first reading, can and must inspire the life of every priest, as they characterized that of Mary of Magdala.

Mary Magdalene followed to Calvary the One who had healed her. She was present at Jesus' crucifixion, death and burial. Together with Mary Most Holy and the beloved disciple, she witnessed his last breath and the silent testimony of his pierced side: she understood that her salvation lay in that death, in that sacrifice. And the Risen One, as today's Gospel recounts, wished to manifest his glorious body first to the one who had wept profusely at his death. To her he "first entrusted ... the joyful news of his resurrection" (Opening Prayer), as if to remind us that the shining glory of his resurrection is revealed precisely to those who look with faith and love on the mystery of the Lord's passion and death.

Mary Magdalene thus teaches us that our vocation as apostles is rooted in the personal experience of Christ. Encountering him leads to a new way of living no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us (cf. 2 Cor 5: 15), by leaving behind the old man to be conformed ever more completely to Christ, the new Man.