The Magdalene Mystique - The Path Inward

The festive worship commemorating St. Mary Magdalene was held last Sunday evening in the Cathedral in downtown Houston. It was a great blessing for all of us. As more than 70 men and women gathered for the event, there was something in the air, an anticipation that something memorable was about to take place.

The musicians, Anita Kruse, (pianist/composer), Jennifer Kenney (flutist), Sonja Bruzauskas (soloist/singer) gathered the community with their traditional Be Present Mantra, which goes:

“Be Present; act as the living presence dwells in you.”

[You might make that your mantra for today. See if it makes some difference as to how you live this day.]

Then the musicians moved us into the opening song from the Taize Community:

“Come and pray in us, Holy Spirit, come and pray in us,
Come and visit us, Holy Spirit, Spirit come, Spirit come.”

[Click here to see an image of the gathered Taize Community in France and bring yourself into an imagined gathering. Another couple of clips will take you to the music of this opening song]

http://www.taize.fr/en_rubrique12.html

http://www.taize.fr/en_article510.html

In this service it was the music and the scripture readings that led the way. And there were speakers that touched us deeply as well: They were the Rev. Mary Green, an Episcopal priest and chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital, Dr. April DeConick, professor of Biblical studies at Rice University, and Pam Stockton, scholar and president of Brigid’s Place. I acted as presider and celebrant of the Eucharist.

To give a bit of background for the service, it just so happened that Mary Green had recently painted an icon of Mary Magdalene. We had become aware of this icon in our Magdalene Community. This icon of the Magdalene reflects the new image of the Magdalene, as First Apostle of the Resurrection, NOT her old image as model of penitence. Upon our request, Green’s icon had been placed in the Cathedral sancturary adjacent to the altar for forty days before the Feast Day. In this way the icon had been blessed, according to the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

So this Sunday night, as the congregation stood and sang “Come and pray in us, Holy Spirit,” Green processed into the Cathedral space with the icon, followed by our readers and speakers. It was a symbolic action, an intentional bringing in of a new image of Mary Magdalene. It was a way of marking a corrective to the manner in which she has formerly resided in churches across the globe. It was a celebration of her as a blessed companion of Jesus, spiritual guide in the early communities, “the apostle to the apostle” and as “equal-to-the apostles.”

Green had written a prayer of blessing of the icon. As it was placed at the top of the chancel steps and sprinkled with holy water, we all repeated the prayer, saying,

“Holy and Loving One, whose Christ is the icon of the invisible God: acccept, we pray, this new icon of St. Mary Magdalene as worthy to make present to us the First Apostle of your Resurrection. Grant to us eyes of faith to see in Mary Magdalene the divine grace that, even today, endures rejection and misunderstanding fo the sake of pure devotion to her Savior. Grant to us the same grace and passion for the Good News of the Risen Christ. Amen ”

After this, Dr. April DeConick addressed the congregatrion.

These are her words:

“It is a pleasure for me to be with you today in your beautiful sanctuary, celebrating a great woman of history – a devoted follower of Jesus, the Apostle to the Apostles, Saint Mary Magdalene. It is an extraordinary honor to carry into the sanctuary her icon, lovingly painted by Rev. Mary Green, and to be part of its consecration and blessing, as we celebrate the Magdalene, whose true personage is being reclaimed by us today.

As we have learned more about church history, we have come to realize that our past understanding of Mary as a repentant prostitute has marginalized her real historical actions and has diminished her actual historical stature. We know today that this image of Mary was created by Pope Gregory the Great in 591 by assimilating to the Magdalene a collage of stories about various women in the New Testament, including the anonymous prostitute in Luke who cries on Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. Pope Gregory, a fiery preacher, used this woman-condensed-from-many-women as an exemplar of the model sinner who repents and is saved from the Last Judgment.

The Magdalene became the Everywoman, the ideal Christian. Like her, we could also turn away from our errors and devote ourselves to Christ. As such, her collage image as a repentant prostitute became very powerful in Western Christianity, so much so that it overshadowed her authentic heritage as the primary witness of Jesus’ death and resurrection, as a faithful disciple of Jesus, and as a teacher to the Apostles and the first Christians, a heritage that the Western churches have all but forgotten.

It is important to realize, however, that her authentic heritage was never lost in the Eastern Orthodox churches, churches that were not influenced by Pope Gregory. In Eastern Christianity, Mary Magdalene stands apart from Luke’s repentant sinner. Her biblically-based story in its Eastern version, is the story of a wealthy woman who was healed by Jesus. During his ministry, she financially helped support Jesus and his mission. When the other disciples fled at his arrest, Mary stayed by his side even standing at the foot of the cross. She was the first to witness the Resurrection. And so in Orthodox tradition, she is called “Equal to the Apostles.”

Her saint legend in the East goes on to claim that, after Jesus’ ascension, Mary journeyed to Rome where she was admitted to the court of Tiberius Caesar because of her high social standing. She told Tiberius how poorly Pilate had run Jesus’ trial and then told him that she had witnessed Jesus risen from the dead. Tiberius responded that a human being could no more rise from the dead than an egg turn red. She picked up an egg and it turned red immediately. After this banquet, Mary traveled the Mediterranean, preaching about the resurrection. Some Eastern traditions place her ministry in Ephesus where she eventually dies. The exchange of red eggs at Easter remains a popular Orthodox custom, a custom that we aren’t completely unfamiliar with in the West. How many Easters have you yourself colored eggs for Easter morning?

It is Mary’s Biblical authentic heritage that we wish to remember and reclaim for the Magdalene today. In order to accomplish this, we are going to reperform her story from the Bible as a Taizé worship service. This form of worship began to be developed in 1940 when a few Protestant brothers began living together in Taizé, a village in France. Eventually Catholic brothers joined them and together they created an ecumenical monastic community to serve the poor and alleviate suffering. Three times a day, the community gathers for prayer and meditative song in a worship service modeled off of a centuries-old tradition of monastic daily prayer. The songs are brief and repetitive, and their singing or chanting is meant to produce a contemplative atmosphere, a place and a space for us to quiet our minds and raise our hearts to God.

Icons are traditionally part of Taizé worship because they are believed to contribute to the beauty of the worship. In Eastern Orthodoxy, icons are thought to be windows open to the realities of the Kingdom of God, making these realities present to us on earth. They are not simply pretty pictures or decorations. They are believed to be symbols of the incarnation, bringing the divine presence of the saint or heavenly being into our human experience. They express and embody for us the higher reality. When icons are used in contemplation, it is believed that they can make that sacred reality present for us. So the onlooker, according to Eastern tradition, should make him- or herself ready to receive the mystery which it reveals, approaching the icon with dignity and a pure conscience.

So this evening, as we celebrate the Feast of Saint Mary Madgalene, I invite you to make yourself ready, to join together in song and contemplation. Feel free to move quietly and respectfully around the sanctuary during the service. You are invited to sit or kneel in the pew or on the floor, to come to the stairs if you wish to look upon the icon at any point during the worship service. Each song will be introduced by a Biblical reading which is meant to help you focus your contemplation and enter the Magdalene story, to help you experience her story as your own story.

Let us prepare our hearts to receive God’s abundant grace.”

And there was grace abounding for the rest of the service, with its icons, Taize Music, and Eucharist. We were learning to act as though the living presence of God dwells within us.

From the comments I received from various people, it was at the Liturgy of the Table where we all sang, “Holy Spirit, come to us” that the congregation felt so gathered and warmly blessed. For me, the Spirit was palpable and real. I couldn’t help thinking that something like this was what the early Christians felt in their gatherings of prayer, song, and eucharist. Somehow, tonight, we had slipped into some region in Egypt or Syria or Palestine where a Magdalene community who honored Mary Magdalene had gathered in the earliest centuries of the Christian era. We were there, and yet we were here.