Feast of St. Mary Magdelene

Today's Mass Readings

In the accumulated reflection of the Church, we come upon what is called the “Three-Headed Mary.” The identifiable facts of St. Mary Magdalene’s life are that she had suffered under demonic possession that Christ wrested from her. She, along with several other women, subsidized and accompanied Jesus and the Twelve in the public ministry. And she was both at Golgotha and one of the first witnesses to Jesus’ Resurrection.

And yet, Mary is three-headed because she has been conflated with the woman caught in adultery in John’s gospel (Jn. 8:1-11). And because in one of the accounts of the anointing of the Lord’s feet, this was a sinful woman (Lk. 7:35-50), and in another, it was associated with a Mary washing them (Jn. 12:3ff) – Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus – the Church conflated sinful and close relationship to what we knew of the Magdalene in the gospels already. Often Mary Magdalene is depicted as a repentant former prostitute. While this image has been important for people turning away from grave sin to a life of freedom and holiness throughout the history of the Church, it is unfair to make these connections to Mary of Magdala.

There is one association that St. John wants us to make with Mary Magdalene: Eve. When Mary comes to anoint Jesus’ body in the tomb, she does not find it, only to meet the Risen Lord Himself. Here a man and woman meet in a garden. Here, the man calls her “woman.” The glorified Christ and Mary represent a new Adam and Eve, now in a form that should not be held onto because this is a New Creation. Death came through this garden interaction and now it leads to life for humanity. “Consequently,” says St. Paul, “from now on we regard no one according to the flesh, even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh… So, whoever is in Christ is a new creation.” Mary goes from the garden to be the Apostle to the Apostles. St. Thomas Aquinas writes: “Just as a woman had announced the words of death to the first man, so also a woman was the first to announce to the apostles the words of life.”

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB