Prayer in the Company of Mary of Magdala

Mary of Magdala, lost lamb, you were trapped by seven demons who held you captive. Jesus liberated you, lifted you onto his shoulders. He gave you back your dignity and your inner freedom. He dried your tears. You witnessed to a God who makes himself close to the poorest of the poor.
- Teach us to let ourselves be radically healed of the old demons that enslave us. We will then be free enough to proclaim God’s salvation.

Like us, you had to struggle all your life so that you would not be once more enslaved by your old habits. You witnessed to Jesus’ constant mercy.
- Teach us to acknowledge our weakness in front of others and to use this as opportunity to announce the Lord’s love all around us.

You followed Jesus from the beginning in Galilee, to the passion, the cross and the entombment. You witnessed with totally feminine faithfulness.
- Teach us the love that tenaciously commits itself to going beyond the upheaval of all deaths. Thus we will be able to manifest in our humanity the faithfulness of a God who loves us unto death.

Like us, you faced the loss of your love the emptiness, the absence in the tomb. You no longer recognized Jesus whom you knew and loved.
- Teach us to continue our search for God beyond our tears. Teach us to allow ourselves to be rerouted by the signs of a God who surprises us.
- Help us to open to the unknown in life, convinced that God lives today and forever in our world that mourns the loss of its hope.

Because you followed the Lord on the road, you heard his Word every day and you consecrated your life to putting it into practice.
- Teach us to get out of ourselves and to allow ourselves to be converted by this word of fire, when Jesus calls us to transmit to our brothers and sisters his Paschal message: «I am alive! I live in the community of persons who believe in me. They are my brothers and sisters.»

Mary of Magdala, you are our sister in the faith. Ask that each of us may have the grace to experience that indescribable encounter with the Risen Lord, wherein Jesus gives each of us a new name «that no one knows except the one who receives it»!  (Rev. 2, 17)

Céline Comeau, sjsh