Feast of Mary Magdalene
Every July 22, the Church remembers Mary Magdalene. In 2016, Pope Francis did something remarkable. He elevated her liturgical memorial to a Feast—the same rank given to the male apostles—and formally recognized what the Church had known from its earliest centuries: Mary Magdalene is apostola apostolorum—the Apostle to the Apostles. That wasn’t creating something new. It was recovering something ancient. Mary Magdalene appears in all four Gospels. That alone should make us pause. She is present at the cross when many others have fled. She watches where Jesus is buried. She returns before dawn to the tomb. And in John’s Gospel, she becomes the first person to encounter the risen Christ. Jesus entrusts her with the first Easter sermon: “Go to my brothers and say The rest of the story