I found him whom my soul loves!

Today is the feast of St Mary Magdalene, the apostle of the apostles! Those of us who follow the monastic way of life consider her one of us. Why? Because she embodies the longing that is at the core of the monastic call. After having been healed by the Master, how could she abandon him? She alone remained, weeping outside the tomb, because her heart and soul were still clinging to the one she loved. Her hope didn’t disappoint.

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She turned and said to him in Hebrew,

“Rabbouni,” which means Teacher.

Jesus said to her,“Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father,

to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,

“I have seen the Lord,”and then reported what he told her. (John 20:16-18)

The monastic vocation is the fruit of an encounter that heals and transforms us forever, showing us who we
are and to whom we belong. Like the bride of the Song of Song we sing, “I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go” (Song 3:4). But Christ always invites us to press on, to aspire to an ever-greater gift, and we receive his Holy Spirit as we give ourselves to our brothers and sisters.

As I begin this blog, I pray with the words of one of our twelfth-century Cistercian Fathers, William of St Thierry. I’m sure St Mary Magdalene would love to join us in this prayer:

O You whom no one truly seeks and does not find, . . . find us that we may find you! Come within us that we may go to you and live in you, for surely this comes not from the person willing, nor from the person running but from you who have mercy! Inspire us first that we may believe! Strengthen us that we may hope! Call us forth and set us on fire that we may love. May everything of ours be yours ‘that we may truly be in you,’ in whom we live and move and have our being. (The Mirror of Faith)

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