[00:00] Today we celebrate obviously one of the greatest saints of the early Church, one who was especially loved by our Lord, and who had somewhat of a checkered past before she met Jesus. She is the perfect representation of two thoughts of famous saints.

[00:35] One is of St. Augustine who said that, "Love God and then do whatever you want." And the reason why he said that is that if we have a pure love of God, if we truly love God, then we will never go outside of His will, that it will be easy to follow His will because we love Him and we would do anything not to offend Him.

[01:05] Then another quote from Father John Hardin who said that even in the case of St. Mary Magdalene, of any one of us who are sinners, that God only allows, and He allows anyone to sin, permits it, not because He wishes the person to sin against Him, but so that He can bring a greater good out of that fall.

[01:38] And what is the greater good, the highest good that God can bring to a soul who has fallen and sinned against Him, is that that person, once converted, may love Him more than he or she would have if they had never sinned. So that gives all of us a hope that we too, following the example of St. Mary Magdalene, can after being forgiven so much, we too can love much after her example.

[02:13] St. Mary Magdalene is quite a well-known figure in the Gospels. She obviously was the sister of Martha and also the sister of Lazarus. She was there and witnessed the miracle of her brother being raised from the dead. She was given a great grace upon meeting Jesus, the seven demons were cast out from her.

[02:45] And from that moment on, in the Gospels, she became one of the closest disciples to our Lord. She never wavered at any time in her faith to our Lord. Despite her reputation within, you know, the small area that they lived, she never hesitated in always choosing, as our Lord said, the better part. Even when her sister Martha, who was also a saint, was criticizing her.

[03:19] She stayed by our Lord and our Lord defended her and said that Mary has chosen the better part and shall not be taken away from her. So we have this historical figure of St. Mary Magdalene, who even in modern times has been defamed by media. You have different authors and traditions that say that she and our Lord were married. Crazy things that have no context or no credence within the historical context.

[03:59] And it's completely just a defamation of the character of our Lord and of Mary Magdalene. And this is a sign that the devil is upset because at one time he had possessed her and our Lord had cast out those demons. So the only thing the devil has left is to defame the character, but she is in heaven

[04:33] and he cannot touch her. So St. Mary Magdalene offers to us not an example of sinfulness, not an example of evil, but a complete opposite, an example of conversion, an example of love, example of courage, because she stood there at the foot of the cross when all the apostles and many of the disciples of our Lord had run away.

[05:06] She stood there with the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Apostle. St. Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Lord within the scripture that is told to us. Now tradition has it, oral tradition, that Our Lady was the first and she didn't even leave the tomb, that she stayed there close by watching throughout the night and that

[05:37] our Lord had appeared to her, that she had witnessed the actual resurrection from the grave. But the scripture tells us of St. Mary Magdalene, that she was the first at that time in the scripture to see our Lord and that she was reunited with Him and she became, that is why the preface today will be the preface of the apostles. Well actually it's a specific preface, the apostle of the apostles.

[06:10] She was given the message to relay to the apostles and she ran and gave the news, the good news to the apostles themselves that our Lord had risen. And from that moment, she became one of the greatest messengers that had ever existed in the Gospels because she had given the actual good news. When we talk about the good news, St. Paul says that the only real good news is the resurrection

[06:44] of Jesus. Without the resurrection of Jesus, everything that we teach is in vain. So St. Mary Magdalene was entrusted with being the apostle to the apostles, the person whom they would have to believe before anyone else, one who was looked at and scoffed at and derided in her life because of her sins, but one who became the beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ, one who loved much because she was forgiven much.

[07:16] So let us be an example. Do not get discouraged by our sins. Do not give up in our following of our Lord and whatever it is that God's will asks of us, because no matter what, when we come to our Lord in sorrow for our sins, He forgives us and we should be heartened and encouraged by the life of St. Mary Magdalene so that

[07:47] we too can benefit from that principle that St. Augustine says, that our Lord would never permit sin unless He could bring a greater good out of that sin. And Father Hardon interpreting that quote, saying that the greatest good that could come of it is that we would love our Lord more than we would have if we had not sinned. So given this, that we are all sinners, we can all love our Lord more because each one

[08:22] of us has been forgiven much so that we may love God more than we would have if we hadn't sinned.