Ego vos elegi

Thoughts from a St. Louis seminarian

Thy Kingdom Come!

Mary Magdalene and the Rest of Us

Today is the memorial of St. Mary Magdalene.  Thanks to our friends of the Da Vinci Code, she is very well known today, and rumors of who she really was abound.  But Mary Magdalene was a somewhat complex figure even before Dan Brown got his hands on her.  Most Catholics still tend to presume that Mary Magdalene, mentioned by Mark and John as the first to see Jesus after the Resurrection , is the same as Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anointed Jesus' feet with her hair.  This is not supported in the text of Scripture, but suggests itself because of their common name and the tender devotion both Marys show to Jesus.  This Mary Magdalene/Mary of Bethany is further traditionally identified with the unnamed sinful woman who, in Luke 7, washes Jesus' feet with her tears, an obvious connection because of the similar hair-foot-washing gesture. 

Catholics may or may not continue to identify these different women with each other, but the idea that Mary Magdalene had a somewhat checkered past seems to be borne out by Mark's statement that seven demons had gone out from her.  One thing is for sure: when Fathers of the Church like Gregory the Great first identified Mary Magdalene with the repentant prostitute of Luke 7, it was in no way part of a smear campaign aimed at degrading Magdalene for the sake of the patriarchal hierarchy of the Church!  That claim is made by some writers today, but it just doesn't make sense: no one in Gregory's time would have even suggested that Mary Magdalene was the same as one of the apostles, or the wife of Jesus, or any other such thing; why would he have felt a need to dishonor her?  Gregory's identification of Magdalene as a penitent sinner is not a putdown, in any case, because the Scriptures clearly give us both St. Peter and St. Paul as men who turned from denial or persecution to follow Jesus. In fact, that is still one of the great lessons of this feast: whether we take Magdalene to be the repentant prostitute, or just go with the seven demons story, we see someone who had been freed by Jesus from the grip of evil, and who clung to him with undying gratitude and affection.  In this respect, she serves as a model for all of us, that those who love Jesus most and are most favored by him will be those who are most able to recognize their sinfulness and their need for him. 

 What about Mary's status vis-a-vis the apostles and the priesthood?  No one who takes seriously the authority of the New Testament will deny that as remarkably close as Mary Magdalene was to Jesus, as highly as he favored her, he nonetheless didn't include her or any of his other faithful women among the Twelve, whom he entrusted with the priesthood.  Is this a denigration?  Only if greatness in the Kingdom of God depends on one's function of leadership, which we know from Jesus' own words isn't the case.  But Mary Magdalene, even if she wasn't a sharer in the apostolic priesthood, was essential in God's saving plan: she was the "apostle to the apostles"!  Mary Magdalene's relation to the Twelve, in fact, bears out the truth that behind every great man of God there is a great woman of God.  Jesus came to us through his Mother, the Immaculate Virgin.  The Easter faith of the apostles Peter and John followed upon the Easter witness of Mary Magdalene.  And the same, I would bet, is true for every one of my fellow seminarians: where did most of us learn our faith from, if not from the strong women of faith who are our mothers?  Putting modern-day polemics aside, the feast of Mary Magdalene is a great  opportunity to be grateful for the feminine genius in the Church, as embodied in this woman who, like the penitent in Luke 7, "loved much."

posted by: mhouser at 15:10 | link | comments (1) |

Comments:

Comments: