Mary Magdalene as Type of Old to New

Wow, I had a new insight after watching the Passion late tonight. Here it is. Already, Mary was a type of the Jews at the Resurrection. Her inability to recognize the Risen Jesus until the third exclamation from Jesus, "Mary," after which she exclaims in ecstasy, "Rabboni," which means, teacher, was an incredible picture of how only in third age of the Church will the Jews recognize Christ as their Messiah.

Here is what I never saw before, i cannot believe it. Always, I was touched immensely at the scene in the passion when the beloved woman was wiping up the blood of the scourging of her dear Savior, and the fact that she was on hands and knees, led to a flashback of when she crawled toward Jesus in the sand-like ground to receive the mercy of Jesus, the God-Man who loved her infinitely and stretched out His Sacred hand to lift her up from shame an feeling unworthy of mercy to forgiveness and exhoration.

Indeed, at that moment, one great and pivotal step in the transition from Old to New took place, as follows: God did indeed, contrary to liberal accusations against orthodoxy, establish and command the death penalty for many serious sins, including adultery. Remembering that many elements of the Old Law were not only pictures of what would really matter but also not the ideal expression of God's ultimate will for man when the Christ would come, God instituted these fearsome and dare we say cruel forms of death as a picture of the reality that serious sin has serious consequences. In fact, we now know in the New Covenant that the ultimate end of unrepented serious sin is not merely PHYSICAL death but ETERNAL, SPIRITUAL death in hell. But the Jews are not ready for such fearsome realities, so God leaves the next worse thing, PHYSICAL death, and hence the death penalty.

Mary Magdalene was predestined by the Trinity to bridge this gap. Through the mercy of Jesus, who challenges the executioners with, "let the one with no sin cast the first stone," he is showing that God's ultimate will is not to put to death serious sinners but to call them to repentance and mercy.

In this regard, Jesus may very well have been writing down in the sand the mystery of why the Jews will convert one day, seeing as such will remain elusive to the Church until the end times.

Recall, for our purposes, that the Church and Jewish People of Old journey the way of the saint historically, which has three ways, just as Jesus speaks to Mary at the tomb three times, and only in the third does she recognize Him. Toward that end, if we recall that the Jews' primary error is to fail to understand that inner renewal is the only thing that matters, not the external things, yet, the Jews must have a frame of reference to eventually see the inner renewal necessity, and as far as we can see, that inner renewal is precisely present in their macro-history from Abraham to Maccabees (again the three ways in a historical sense). Consequently, unless they can see that what mattered in their history was the spiritual phases concurrent with the ways of their apocalyptic journey, their conversion will be eluded. Yet where will they find it? Aha! So many threes filled up the Incarnate One and his life.

Christ fulfilled in His Flesh their entire journey: threes! For three days and three nights, Jesus lingered in the earth before rising. On the third day He arose from the dead, in accordance with the Scriptures. Christ fell THREE times in the way of the cross. Christ progressively prayed three times in the Garden to accept the Will of His Father for the Passion. Three times, Peter denied Christ, and three times He was reconciled (Peter do you love me.) Three times, Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene at the tomb to open her eyes. For three days and three nights, Mother Mary and St Joseph looked for the Christ before finding Him in the Temple.

Yet, though the Jews have these references, they have not believed. And so if "no other sign shall be given except the sign of Jonas," and if Jesus is the ending point, what other option is there except to say that what will make the Jews believe is in fact to see the same ways filled up not in Christ but His Mystical BODY, the CHURCH! Amen, as more and more of the SPIRITUAL phases of the Church progress in history, the Jews will see more clearly the imprint of their phases in the Church, even as, if it were possible, they place their apocalyptic fingers and hands into the wounds of the Risen Christ, whose risen wounds bear the semblance of the old wounds, that is, the phases of the Jewish People. So that, in "filling" up [fulfilling?] the wounds with their own fingers and hand, symbolizing the experiencing of their own history in witness to the Church's phases, they shall stop "unbelieving and believe" and exclaim with that same St Thomas, "My Lord and My God!"

St Mary Magdalene at the Tomb

Now to St Mary Magdalene at the Tomb.

We all know the story: Jesus speaks to Mary three times, and progressively she recognizes Him.

More specifically, in a first instance, St. Mary Magdalene’s inability to recognize Jesus at the tomb, secondly, her progressive hope in Christ, and thirdly, the final culmination of recognizing Him at the utterance of Jesus, “Mary!”, can be an image of the Jewish relationship to the Messiah in the entire course of the history of the Church.

This would imply, since there are three exchanges, like the three days of Jesus in the Tomb, three chapters of Jewish history during the Church: early Church, intermediate Church, and final Church history.

At each junction, the Savior, the Messiah, is appealing to the weeping Woman, His bride:

Messiah: “Woman, why do you weep?”

Mary:“They have taken my Lord and I do not know where they have laid Him!”

People of Old: “The Messiah was supposed to be here. The Messiah was supposed to have come. We had the prophecies, the times, but He is not here. He did not come. We do not know where He is!”

This can be the first phase of Church history, the purgative way. In this first phase, pagan Rome, the Jews knew through prophecy, especially Daniel, that the Messiah was supposed to have come, and He did not. Their situation is hopeless, and their relationship to Jesus and the Christians is one of hostility and enmity. Christ is not on the radar map at this time.

Messiah: ”Woman, why do you weep?”

Mary: “Sir, if you know where they have taken Him, then please tell me in order that I may go and anoint Him.”

People of Old: “Sir, we still do not recognize you as Our Savior. But perhaps you are a person [the gardener] who can help us FIND the Messiah, FIND where they have LAID HIM!”

To progress, most fully approved private revelation suggests that we are at an intermediate juncture of Church history, a certain dark night of the soul. The modern godless crisis will give way to a great renewal, even if it requires a chastisement of epic proportions. This renewal will bring the fullness of the Gentiles, a near worldwide Catholic civilization of love, the Triumph of Our Lady of Fatima’s Heart.

Too, the Jewish history has taken a positive turn in this second age: a great portion of the Jewish people now have repossession of the Holy Land (just as in the second day, Mary and Joseph returned to Jerusalem as they continued to look for Jesus) that they had lost so many centuries ago by the Divine chastisement of Temple destruction and diaspora, which was an allowed consequence of the Jewish inability to recognize the coming of their Savior.

Too, Jewish/Christian relations are renewed. Jews still do not recognize Christ as their Messiah; they do not fully recognize the Risen Savior who still stands before them apocalyptic-ally as they continue to weep that they do not know where the Savior is. But, many now regard Christ as a good man who can help them FIND the Savior, as it were (the gardener?). In fact, in the wake of the incomprehensible horrors of the Holocaust, the Church has reached out to Her elder brethren in friendship, filial affection, and respect. (Popes visiting synagogues and such, unheard of for centuries)

Technically, Her call to the Jewish People for conversion has not truly been abrogated as some well-meaning individuals with a very understandable but misguided compassion may insinuate, but neither does the Church look upon her beloved seed of God’s Covenant with condemnation, knowing that the Jewish People are not yet fully culpable historically for conversion to the Gospel, and that, leaving the case of any individual Jewish person to that person and the mercy of God, we realize that, first of all, the mystery of a person’s conscience carries with it its limited, complex experiences both in positive and negative dimensions, secondly, that in the end, one can be saved by the implicit desire for Baptism—which, at the end of the day is simply, “Lord, show me the way; Lord, help me follow the way”—and finally, remembering that the Father in the great parable does not condemn the older son in his understandable jealousy at the return of the converted, reprobate younger son (the Jewish jealously toward the Gentiles, who once spit in God’s face but now enjoy mercy from the Gospel) but only pleads with the older to come into the house and celebrate the redemption of his younger brother!

Hence, the intermediate scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene can be our second, intermediate phase of Church history, the dark night of the soul:

Messiah: “Mary!”

People of Old and Mary: “Rabboni!”

Finally, at the end of the world, the ultimate déjà vu enters in, with the New Testament Antichrist—the final history of the Church before the Second Coming of Christ—fulfilling Old Testament Antichrist, Antiochus IV Epiphanies—the final history of the Jews before the First Coming of Christ—bringing the ultimate spiritual victory: the opening of the eyes of the Jews.

Consequently, Mary Magdalene becomes an image of the mystery of relationship of Old to New, both in transition and the eventually acceptance of the Jewish people of the Messiah.