Recently, Pope Francis declared that the Church will celebrate St. Mary Magdalene on July 22 as a feast, making it a higher-level celebration than the original obligatory memorial. The change means the liturgy will be grander and the Gloria will be included in the Mass. There are surely several reasons why the pope decided to increase the solemnity with which we celebrate Mary Magdalene: her complete conversion, the fullness of her love of Christ, her role in spreading the Gospel. It is this last aspect of her life that makes St. Mary Magdalene a beloved patroness of Dominicans, the Order of Preachers.

Mary Magdalene is known as the “apostola apostolorum,” “the apostle to the Apostles,” because she was the first person sent to preach — to the Apostles themselves — the truth of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. And this truth and the opportunity to preach it are truly worth celebrating.

Jesus’ resurrection is not just a nice extra topping to our faith; rather, it is the very reason for the existence of our faith. Our faith would make no sense if Christ were not risen from the dead. St. Paul tells us, “And if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith … If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17). If Jesus Christ is not truly risen from the dead, then our faith is nothing but empty foolishness. Do we put our trust in a good moral teacher who died more than 2,000 years ago — and that’s the end of the story? Hardly something to believe in! But if it is true that He is risen, or rather since it is true, then death and sin no longer have power over us who believe in Him.

How deeply has Christ’s resurrection penetrated our personal lives? Do we truly live as though death and sin have no power over us? Do we live as though Our Lord has already won the victory over the darkness of this world for us? Think of Mary Magdalene and the Apostles and early Christians: their lives were never the same again after they encountered the Risen Christ. They had such hope due to His resurrection that many of them



were willing to risk death to live by this truth and to share it with others. Have our lives been so transformed by Christ’s resurrection that we are invigorated by this same hope and zeal?

There may be people we encounter — perhaps in the pew next to us at church or even in our own families — who have never heard Christ’s resurrection explained in a way that allowed them to realize its radicality and importance. Perhaps some have never heard this beautiful truth at all. We will only be able to witness to them that Christ is risen if we have first allowed that truth to penetrate our own daily lives.

Jesus Christ is truly alive, and thus, as one retreat priest recently told the Sisters, we are just as much His contemporaries as those with whom He walked and talked in first-century Palestine. If we recognize that He is alive and with us, our lives will be transformed by the hope that in every situation, He is intimately at work for our good, and this hope with which we approach life will be a shining witness to others. May our lives show that we have encountered and been changed by the Risen One who has conquered sin and death.

Sr. Mary Martha Becnel is a member of the Ann Arbor-based Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.