ST. MARY MAGDALENE: BELOVED AND BELONGING
The feast of St. Mary Magdalene has a double meaning for me. In one sense, the person of Mary Magdalene is an enigma in many ways. There are lots of different ideas about who she was, what she experienced to need the healing Jesus gave to her and how she supported his ministry. She became a saint in the early Church before the formal canonization process was determined. St. Mary Magdalene is celebrated on July 22.
For me personally, St. Mary Magdalene is also the namesake of the parish in which I grew up. St. Mary Magdalene parish is not only where I received many of the sacraments, but where my parents and their parents did, too. The parish has closed but I continue to wear the silver class ring from the parish school.
My parents were part of the choir and the service groups, and my father helped with many practical things around the school and church, including (I remember this well) making the sign for the entry to the church stating “Please do not throw confetti in the vestibule.” I was too young to know what a vestibule was, but I thought of my father every time I would come through the doors. I was not married in that church, so I didn’t have to worry about confetti being thrown, but I recall the photo of my First Communion class taken on the front steps. My school uniform had an SMM badge on it. My connection to the parish, the church and the school has been made through the memories from my ancestors and my own.
I recently traveled through parts of Newfoundland and visited a great museum in St John’s called “The Rooms.” Part of the many features there included exhibits about the concepts of connection and belonging. It occurred to me that Mary Magdalene, the person and the saint are a connector for me. There is the personal connection to my Catholic and family roots as well as a connection to the early followers of Christ. Since Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Christ, she was the first to share the Good News of the resurrection. She is a connection to all believers.
Mary Magdalene felt the great loss and the absence of belonging when she headed to the tomb early in the morning. It seems natural that when she realized that Jesus was alive she would want to hug and hold him. But Jesus told her not to cling to him. She was told to go and tell the others. And she did: Mary Magdalene was swept away in joy! She became the connection to all the disciples then and now for her role in bringing the news of the resurrection to the other apostles on Easter morning. Some refer to Mary Magdalene as the Apostle to the Apostles!
As a woman, I feel a connection to Mary Magdalene and a desire to know and love Jesus as she did. Mary Magdalene belonged to Jesus – she followed him and continued to carry on as a disciple after he ascended. She may be a woman of mystery in some ways, but there is much certainty about her being a disciple of Jesus. Her initial healing brought her into the depths of faith, and she became steadfast in following Jesus. Jesus told her not to cling to him in the physical sense, but she clung to him in the spiritual sense. Jesus touched her heart, and she understood the message more readily and perhaps more completely than others in her time.
The following Rilke poem describes the “greater blessedness” that Jesus graced her with. The depth and hollowness of her grief was replaced by his continued blessing and love.
The Risen One
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Until his final hour he had never
refused her anything or turned away,
lest she should turn their love to public praise.
Now she sank down beside the cross, disguised,
heavy with the largest stones of love
like jewels in the cover of her pain.
But later, when she came back to his grave
with tearful face, intending to anoint,
she found him resurrected for her sake,
saying with greater blessedness, “Do not –”
She understood it in her hollow first:
how with finality he now forbade
her, strengthened by his death, the oils’ relief
or any intimation of a touch:
because he wished to make of her the lover
who needs no more to lean on her beloved,
as, swept away by joy in such enormous
storms, she mounts even beyond his voice
Prayer
May we be healed through our connection with you, Jesus, and know to whom we belong. May we feel strengthened daily by your love and inspired by the unwavering devotion of St. Mary Magdalene. Amen.
Jeanne Lambert combines her experiences as a parish and community nurse and her music ministry, and she continues to find ways to include music in pastoral care and community hospice work. Jeanne has many diverse writings and presentations to her credit on family life, grief, wholistic health care and spiritual reflection.
