When we believe all He has taught us through His Church, we do more than merely touch Him, we unite with Him through the Holy Eucharist — the Head and the Body, the Spouse and the Bride. I can only imagine how much this unification would mean to St. Mary Magdalen — her first Holy Communion!

I have heard many in the RCIA programs talk of how eager and filled with longing they have been (and experienced this myself fifteen years ago as a new member of the Church at the Easter Vigil Mass), to receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. How great must that longing have been for those who walked with Him in this world, and touched him in this world, and listened to Him in this world during the years before his death and resurrection! How powerfully did that first reception of the Blessed Sacrament affect St. Mary Magdalen!

Those who have been forgiven much, love much. “But to whom less has been forgiven, he loveth less.” A chain of events leading a body and soul to great love. Repentance, forgiveness, Love. The more we seek forgiveness through true repentance, He surely forgives, and then we begin to truly love Him very much, and then we know what Joy truly is.

We all have that true Joy available to our souls now, through faith and obedience to His Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Seems a shame, at times, that we in this world seem to prefer a sort of counterfeit joy, a natural joy of the flesh which we often mistake for the spiritual joy that truly satisfies both the body and the spirit of repentant sinners.

It would be interesting to read how those first Masses came about in practice. How the Apostles structured the Church and the Sacrifice of the Mass. And in what ways the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass developed over the first several years and centuries. Any suggested reading would be appreciated.

St. Mary Magdalen, apostle to the apostles, pray for us!