By Clement Harrold
July 18, 2025
2025 is an Ordinary Jubilee Year dedicated to the theme “pilgrims of hope.” Biblically speaking, the jubilee is about liberation, restoration, and rest. As Pope Francis explained shortly after the Jubilee began, “The Jubilee is for people and for the Earth a new beginning; it is a time when everything must be rethought within the dream of God.”
In that same catechesis, Pope Francis pointed to the Gospel figure of St. Mary Magdalene as a model for us to follow in this year of special graces. In an exemplary way, this biblical heroine shows what it means to be a pilgrim of hope, and her life story beautifully illustrates the spiritual liberation which only Christ can bring.
Freed to Love
While recent decades have raised fresh questions about the identity of St. Mary Magdalene, there is an ancient tradition which associates her with the unnamed “woman of the city, who was a sinner” (Luke 7:37) who anoints the feet of Jesus, through her tears, in chapter seven of Luke’s Gospel. Whether or not this tradition is ultimately correct, it has sparked an abundance of Christian devotion and meditation over the centuries. What we know for certain is that Mary Magdalene was once possessed by no less than seven demons, before receiving spiritual healing from Christ (see Luke 8:2; Mark 16:9).
One thinker who accepted the tradition identifying Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman from Luke 7 was the English cardinal St. John Henry Newman. In a profound discourse on the theme of “Purity and Love,” Newman draws a fascinating distinction between “saints of purity” and “saints of love.” Even if we have not lived lives of exceptional purity (like St. John the Baptist, or St. John the Evangelist, or the Little Flower), we can still become saints of burning, penitential love (like St. Peter, or St. Augustine, or St. Mary Magdalene).
This gives us the firm assurance that our past failings do not define our future, as the encounter between the sinful woman (identified by Newman as St. Mary Magdalene) and Christ readily reveals:
Wonderful meeting between what was most base and what is most pure! Those wanton hands, those polluted lips, have touched, have kissed the feet of the Eternal, and He shrank not from the homage. And as she hung over them, and as she moistened them from her full eyes, how did her love for One so great, yet so gentle, wax vehement within her, lighting up a flame which never was to die from that moment even for ever! and what excess did it reach, when He recorded before all men her forgiveness, and the cause of it! “Many sins are forgiven her, for she loved much; but to whom less is forgiven, the same loveth less. And He said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven thee; thy faith hath made thee safe, go in peace” [Luke 7:47-50]. Henceforth, my brethren, love was to her, as to St. Augustine and to St. Ignatius Loyola afterwards (great penitents in their own time), as a wound in the soul, so full of desire as to become anguish. She could not live out of the presence of Him in whom her joy lay: her spirit languished after Him, when she saw Him not; and waited on Him silently, reverently, wistfully, when she was in His blissful Presence. (Newman, “Purity and Love”)
At the feet of Jesus, Mary Magdalene found the peace, love, and joy for which her heart had always longed. In this dramatic moment of spiritual jubilee, she left behind her old sinful ways and began to “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).
Ongoing Conversion
Of course, Mary Magdalene’s healing with Jesus was not the end of her faith journey, but rather a glorious new beginning. Pope Francis reminded us that the Jubilee is all about new beginnings: taking stock of where the Lord has brought us, tasting and seeing His goodness (see Psa 34:8), and recommitting ourselves to the path of holiness.
This means conversion is not a one-and-done thing, but rather a continual process which lasts nothing less than a lifetime. Pope Francis expounded on this point with particular reference to Mary Magdalene, and his words are worth quoting at length:
In the Gospels, the figure of Mary Magdalene stands out above all others for this. Jesus healed her with mercy (cf. Lk 8:2), and she changed: sisters and brothers, mercy changes, mercy changes the heart, and for Mary Magdalene, mercy brought her into God’s dreams and gave new purpose to her journey.
The Gospel of John tells of her encounter with the Risen Jesus in a way that makes us think [see John 20:1-2,11-18]. It is repeated several times that Mary turned around. The Evangelist chooses his words well! In tears, Mary looks first inside the tomb, then she turns around: the Risen one is not on the side of death, but on the side of life. He can be mistaken for one of the people we encounter every day. Then, when she hears her name spoken, the Gospel says that again Mary turns around. And this is how her hope grows: now she sees the tomb, but not like before. She can dry her tears, because she has heard her own name: only the Master pronounces it in this way. . . .
Dear brothers and sisters, from Mary Magdalene, whom tradition calls “the apostle of the apostles”, we learn hope. One enters the new world by converting more than once. Our journey is a constant invitation to change perspective. The Risen One takes us into His world, step by step, on the condition that we do not claim to know everything already.
Let us ask ourselves today: Do I know how to turn around to see things differently, with a different outlook? Do I have the desire for conversion?
With these penetrating insights, Pope Francis echoes a long tradition which sees a deeper significance in St. John’s description of Mary Magdalene “turning around” multiple times while standing outside the empty tomb.
St. Augustine, for example, described Magdalene’s second turn as an interior movement of the heart:
But how was it that this woman, who had already turned herself back to see Jesus, when she supposed Him to be the gardener, and was actually talking with Him, is said to have again turned herself, in order to say unto Him “Rabboni,” but just because, when she then turned herself in body, she supposed Him to be what He was not, while now, when turned in heart, she recognized Him to be what He was. (Tractates on the Gospel of John, 121, ch 2)
These characterizations help us to discover in Mary Magdalene a profound exemplar of the continual conversion which is so integral to the spirit of the Jubilee.
Sharing the Good News
In so many ways, the traditional story of Mary Magdalene’s life calls to mind the words of Psalm 42: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God” (Psa 42:1). It was her ardent pursuit of the streams of God’s grace which led this daughter of Israel to become such a radiant saint of love.
Doubtless it was this same ardour which moved her to set off early on Easter Sunday morning, “while it was still dark” (John 20:1), in search of the One who had brought such light to her weary soul. And when she was finally reunited with Him, she could not keep her joy to herself: “Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her” (John 20:18).
Commenting on this passage, St. Thomas Aquinas notes the extraordinary threefold honour given to Mary Magdalene:
Notice the three privileges given to Mary Magdalene. First, she had the privilege of being a prophet because she was worthy enough to see the angels, for a prophet is an intermediary between angels and the people. Secondly, she had the dignity or rank of an angel insofar as she looked upon Christ, on whom the angels desire to look. Thirdly, she had the office of an apostle; indeed, she was an apostle to the apostles insofar as it was her task to announce our Lord’s resurrection to the disciples. Thus, just as it was a woman who was the first to announce the words of death, so it was a woman who would be the first to announce the words of life. (Commentary on the Gospel of John, #2519)
She who once lived as a slave to her demons now shines forth as the model disciple. And she teaches us, too, to enter into the joy and the freedom of the new and perpetual Jubilee which Christ has inaugurated through His Passion, death, and Resurrection.
As Pope Francis so beautifully expressed it, “Instead of looking into the darkness of the past, into the emptiness of a tomb, from Mary Magdalene we learn to turn towards life. There our Master awaits us. There our name is spoken.”
Further Reading
Fr. Sean Davidson, Saint Mary Magdalene: Prophetess of Eucharistic Love (Ignatius Press, 2017)
https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/a-retrieval-of-the-traditional-view-of-mary-magdalene/
About Clement Harrold
Clement Harrold earned his master’s degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2024, and his bachelor’s from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2021. His writings have appeared in First Things, Church Life Journal, Crisis Magazine, and the Washington Examiner.
