Apostle to the Apostles – The Residing Church

“The Apostle to the Apostles” is a solemn title often ascribed to Saint Mary Magdalene, significantly within the Jap Church. Whereas church custom and native piety has developed round and surrounded Saint Mary Magdalene, not not like different apostles and saints, Holy Scripture provides us a particular snapshot of her life and witness. 

The appointed gospel studying within the Each day Workplace lectionary locations us on the empty tomb. This means to us that Saint Mary Magdalene’s story, her new life and the lifetime of the Church, begins on the empty tomb. Saint Mary Magdalene, nevertheless, just isn’t an unintended eyewitness however an supposed herald of the resurrection. She is tasked to ship the resurrection religion to our Lord’s different disciples. Whereas we don’t know the exact phrases or fashion of Saint Mary Magdalene’s exhortation to the disciples, we all know that the disciples listened to her. The disciples listened and have been moved to see what had come to go; some instantly believed simply as some doubted. In the long run, the disciples, like Saint Mary Magdalene, have been moved to hold out the resurrection religion and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them within the identify of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

As the primary tasked to ship the resurrection religion, Saint Mary Magdalene rightfully deserves and holds a spot of honor within the Church. Not solely is she honored as the primary apostle to proclaim the resurrection, however for her braveness to proclaim the resurrection with the brutality of the cross nonetheless looming. Amidst our Easter Day celebrations, as we joyfully shout “Alleuluia,” it’s straightforward for us to overlook that sting of demise and its ensuing trauma lingered within the early hours of that first Easter Day. The information of the Lord’s resurrection, delivered to the disciples by Saint Mary Magdalene, was the soothing and therapeutic balm the disciples so desperately wanted. Saint Mary’s Magdalene’s Easter proclamation modified them, simply because it modified the entire of human historical past.

The Reverend Carlos de la Torre serves as rector of the Church of the Ascension, Chicago.