The Desire of God: Homily for Wednesday, July 22, 2026

The Desire of God. And that really is what comes from our baptism. That we are called to go and tell. To share the good news, especially with those whose lives are much like the lives of Mary Magdalene. Broken. To tell people that Jesus loves them more than they can possibly imagine. And that Jesus can do for them more than they can possibly imagine. Readings for Today.

The Desire of God

I love the Song of Songs. You know, this book took a while for the Hebrew people to be accepted as inspired because it’s so human and a little racy but it carries in a succinct way the message of all of Scripture that God pursues and we respond.

The lover, of course, in the Song of Songs is God himself who is so eager and anxious for a relationship with us leaping, bounding, racing to come to see us. And this reading captures something even more important because it references the bride.

Now in Catholic theology, the bride, of course, is the church. And what does the church do in this reading from the Song of Songs? Pursues, seeks, looks for, tries to discover where it is that God is active and what it is that God wants us to do and who it is that God wants us to be. And this seeking in the first reading bears fruit. The bride does, as we hear in the last sentence, “I had hardly left them when I found him whom my heart loves.”

Mary Magdalene, whose feast we celebrate today, was one who saw it. She was looking for meaning and fulfillment. She was looking for ways to heal her brokenness. And for a while in her desperation, she looked, as we might say, in all the wrong places. But eventually she found Jesus.

And such is a very good thing for us because whatever Mary Magdalene did, she did it with every fiber of her being after Jesus had changed her life. She is the one with the other women who are at the foot of the cross. She is the one who goes to the tomb along with Peter and John. Father Benedict Greschel used to say, as he was doing a psychological analysis of the saints, he posed a question, “Do you ever wonder why Mary Magdalene was first to see the resurrection?” Because Mary Magdalene was that type of parishioner who was first to see everything. Coming to every event, being active in everything.

But this reading we hear today is more than just a historical encounter of Mary Magdalene. It’s more, much more. Because what we’re given here today is a model of evangelization. We are given an example of Mary who, when she encounters the situation, sees an empty tomb. Then she sees angels. Then she sees Jesus.

That seems like a very appropriate pattern for faith. It seems to be the way that each of us came to discover the Lord Jesus and his importance in our life. But maybe the part we don’t always pay enough attention to is what Mary Magdalene is called to do. She’s not called to stay in the moment of the resurrection. Jesus tells her, “Go and tell.”

And that really is what comes from our baptism. That we are called to go and tell. To share the good news, especially with those whose lives are much like the lives of Mary Magdalene. Broken. To tell people that Jesus loves them more than they can possibly imagine. And that Jesus can do for them more than they can possibly imagine.

Of course, the same is always true for us. Because of sin, we too are broken. But, because of the power of the resurrection of Jesus, and the ways in which people like Mary Magdalene have responded by sharing their faith, we too can encounter the risen Christ.

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