Mary Magdalene
July 22, 2025
He Knows My Name
DRAFT
On July 22, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, the “Apostle to the Apostles” and the person to whom the resurrected Jesus first appeared.
Like many of the saints who were contemporaries of Jesus, almost everything we know about Mary Magdalene comes from the Gospels themselves, although they differ on some of the details. From the Gospels we are certain:
Mary was a disciple of the Lord
Jesus healed her with an exorcism
She probably was a wealthy patron of Jesus. (She’s listed as the first in a group of women in Luke 8 who “provided for [Jesus and the disciples] out of their resources”)
She was likely from Magdala, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee (hence “Magdalene,” which helps distinguish her from Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Mary of Clopas, or Mary of Bethany)
She stayed close to Jesus during his passion and death
She encounters the resurrected Jesus.
She announces to the Apostles, “I have seen the Lord!” making her the first disciple to proclaim the risen Jesus.
Due to the Easter homily of Pope Gregory in 591 and his conflation of Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet in Luke 7, for centuries Mary Magdalene was mislabeled a repentant prostitute. This defined how many viewed her and depicted her (especially in western art and iconography), inserting something the Gospels do not say and detracting from what the Gospels actually tell us about her. (Notably, the Orthodox Church never took this position). The Vatican News website now puts it very bluntly; on the web page of her biography, there is now a subsection titled: “Misconceptions of her identity: Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute” with a few paragraphs dedicated to dispelling this error.
But there is one more key fact about St. Mary Magdalene we have not mentioned yet.
Jesus calls her by her name, and when he does, she recognizes his voice.
In the garden, on the day of the Resurrection, Mary searched worriedly for the body of Jesus. By this account she had already retrieved Peter and John, and they had left after verifying what she had said: Jesus’ body was not in the tomb. The stone was rolled away.
At first Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener. He asks her why she is weeping and whom she is looking for. She replies, "Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him."
Then Jesus says only one word in response- her name:
“Mary!”
And with that, she turned to him, because she knew who he was.
What would that moment have been like for Mary Magdalene? To have the Lord whom you loved and whom you had given everything to follow call you by name when you thought he was still dead? When just a moment earlier you worried that his body had been stolen?
We can imagine joy, wonder, confusion, gratitude, and tears all mingled together as she answered, “Rabbouni!” (Teacher).
And then Jesus sent her on mission to the others to proclaim, “I have seen the Lord!”
When Jesus calls Mary’s name, we can bring to mind the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament and the tenderness with which the Lord made, sustains, protects, and loves us all. Where Isaiah writes “Jacob” and “Israel,” we can imagine the Lord saying “Mary Magdalene” or our own names.
“But now, thus says the Lord,
who created you Jacob, and formed you Israel::
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name: you are mine.
When you pass through waters, I will be with you;
through rivers, you shall not be swept away.
When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned,
nor will flames consume you.
For I, the Lord, am your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your savior…
Because you are precious in my eyes
and honored, and I love you…”
Jesus knows Mary’s name, and he called her. Jesus knows me by name and calls me to him.
And Jesus knows you by name, and calls you, wherever you are, to both a life of love and to proclaim with your life that he has risen.
St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, you whom the Lord loved and called by name,
Pray for us!
Hope Zelmer
Hope Zelmer is a writer and a former theology teacher and campus minister at Fenwick High School, a Dominican Catholic preparatory school in Oak Park, Illinois. Hope has written for publications such as FaithND, Church Life Journal, and FemCatholic. She holds a BA and MA in Theology from the University of Notre Dame.
