“Whom are you looking for?”……Who will be the “next Mary Magdalene”…Your guess is as good as mine - But she is out there - Count on it!

Today at Holy Mass the Universal Church honors Mary Magdalene…We all know who Mary Magdalene is….Scripture tells us that Jesus freed her of seven demons…That translates in today’s language that Mary was as “bad as bad can be” and somehow Christ changed her…And once she changed…Mary never looked back - She had the heart of a warrior and when everyone else abandoned Jesus - Mary risked her own life and planted herself at the foot of the cross…..For more than three decades now I have actively practiced my Catholic faith and over the course of that time I have met a lot of interesting people from all over the world….With that being said…Give me 12 “rough and tumble sinners” who have radically changed any day of the week!…People like that will walk through fire!…Why is that? - Because they know what it means to suffer and when they see others suffering, they truly care and want to do something about it……Something that is not noted in my estimations enough by theologians and Biblical scholars is the fact that the first person that Jesus appeared too after he resurrected from the dead was Mary Magdalene……Jesus did not appear to St John or the rest first…But he appeared to a person whom the world “wrote off” and in a sense “rose from the dead” herself…..That should tell you something - It tells me something……Jesus came for sinners and when the lost finally “figure things out” - Get out of their way! - These are “my people” - These are the people I want to be in a “fox hole” with……Give me 12 people like that and I will convert the world!

“So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come”

I was recently talking to my wife about my oldest daughter’s Godfather…Michael is a modern day Job from the Old Testament….Everything was taken from him and as a result he was Baptized a Catholic…..Persevered in his Catholic faith…And everything and more was returned to him - No joke!….Michael had issues with drugs and alcohol, which led him in his thirties after a car accident that left him in a hospital bed for two months to get Baptized…..Following his recovery, he continued his crazy life only to get divorced and lose his one and only son who was only seven years old….Michael then got serious!…He dug deep into his Catholic faith…Committed his life to the poor…Developed a prayer life…And in time, met another woman and recently adopted a baby boy who was abandoned by a drug addicted mother…..I have had many “adventures” with Michael in Kolkata on numerous trips over to India…..Give me a guy like that to stand beside me any day of the week!…..I’ll walk into and through the fires of hell with Michael…People like this amaze me…They are reminders, as was the example of Mary Magdalene, what an authentic encounter with Christ can do…..So what about us?…..Have we truly met this Carpenter from Nazareth?…..One cannot be passive after encountering the Living God - Its frankly impossible!…..If we only knew our potential - And I am going to be honest, I see such potential in others - That is no lie…If only they saw it too….My job is to bring that potential before their eyes…And for the other practicing Catholics reading this reflection today - That is your job too!….”If we are who we were born to be - We would set the world on fire!”

“You are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. My soul clings fast to you; your right hand upholds me”

Today the Universal Church puts a spot light on Mary Magdalene, a great sinner who was transformed into a great saint….The life of Mary Magdalene should give us all hope…The hope that we too can change…..This why we should NEVER write people off….If you read about the lives of the saints, there are many figures like Mary Magdalene who shocked the world after they encountered Christ….What keeps you from being one of those people?….That is what we all have to ponder today…..Why do we settle for mediocrity?…….Two thousand years later, the name of Mary Magdalene is still remembered….Buildings are named after her…..Statues of her stand in town squares all around the world……When Jesus appeared to Mary after he rose from the dead, he said these words……"Woman, why are you weeping? - Whom are you looking for?”….To this very day Jesus says these same words to a troubled and wounded world - “Whom are you looking for?”……Who will be the “next Mary Magdalene”…Your guess is as good as mine - But she is out there - Count on it!