Mary Magdalene: Common Saint

Following the Roman Catholic calendar of saints allowed me to know that yesterday was the saint day for Mary Magdalene.  I like to follow the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, as the daily readings are called.  Special days for the various Catholic saints are recognized as part of the daily notice.  It is good for me, since my own Quaker tradition does not have anything similar.  Our Quaker tradition does hold some folks to have been more “weighty” than others---a term that allows at one level we are all equal, while acknowledging that at another level some really had a larger impact on the world.

With this kind of language, we can say that Mary Magdalene was a “weighty spiritual woman” in her own time.  And that continues to this day.  The Catholic Church canonized her and now she is St. Mary.  I am fine with that.  It does not mean she is only for Catholics and the rest of us can only look from afar.  Hardly, since Mary Magdalene plays a primary role in the New Testament and, thus, belongs to all of us who hold dear the New Testament. 

We don’t know very much about the “real” Mary Magdalene.  Mary is a very common name in that era.  We also know that Magdala was a place near Tiberias in the north of Israel on the Galilee shore.  It may well be that this was Mary’s home area.  The are other suggestions by scholars, but it does not matter to me why she became Mary, the Magdalene.  I am more intrigued by her role in the faith than her origins.

Our historical options are threefold, if we stick to the New Testament.  Some scholars say she is the “sinner” talked about in Luke 7.  Then she was one of the women who followed Jesus in Luke’s next chapter and ministered to him.  More historically solid is the episode in which Mary Magdalene is at the scene of the cross and the crucifixion.  All four gospels place her at the foot of the cross at the last days of Jesus.  We are told that she saw him laid in the tomb.  Thirdly, we know from the New Testament texts that she is present at the tomb at the Resurrection.  In fact, John’s Gospel has only Mary Magdalene first and alone at the tomb.

So do we have three accounts of one Mary Magdalene?  Or do we have three accounts of three different Marys?  That is historically impossible to tell in all likelihood.  While as a scholar, I am intrigued by this, as a person of faith, it does not matter at all.  And this intrigue only becomes keener when we see the historical tradition become even more embellished.

What intrigues me the most in all of this is the role Mary Magdalene played in the witness of her faith.  She witnesses to three stages of faith, as I want to develop it.  The first phase is the “coming to faith.”  If Mary were the “sinner” of Luke 7, this tells us a bit about her pilgrimage.  The scene is a dinner party at a Pharisee’s house.  Through the course of the meal, the woman who is a sinner is washing the feet of Jesus, kissed him and anointed his feet.  Jesus contrasts her action with that of the dinner guests, none of whom had done any of this.  At the end Jesus forgives her sins, which is a kind of healing.  And then he says, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (7:50) She had come to faith.

The second phase of the faith pilgrimage is “growing in faith.”  Here we know virtually no details for Mary Magdalene.  But she surely did grow in her faith.  She began to follow Jesus.  She became a disciple, even if that term were never used for her.  To be a disciple literally means to become a student.  Jesus was her Rabbi---her Teacher. 

Discipleship certainly entails a learning process.  But it is more than an accumulation of knowledge.  To become a disciple was a quest for wisdom more than a desire of knowledge.  That was Mary Magdalene’s journey.  She must have traveled it effectively.  She came not only to the cross, but was there for the rest of the story.  In fact, to begin with she may have been the first and only one there.  This brought her fully into the third stage of the faith, namely, “deep witnessing.” 

I call it deep witnessing because there are times the witnessing can lead to death.  This is capture very well in the Greek word for witness, marturo or martyro.  Clearly, the English word, martyr, is implicated in that Greek word.  The call to faith is ultimately a call to become a witness.  And witnessing has many levels to it.  The process of becoming a saint is tied up with this process of faith development.  Obviously, Mary Magdalene did it exceptionally well.

Finally, the real task is not to learn her story so well I can tell it without a hitch.  The real task is the personal one---my life and your life.  Mary has walked her walk.  She is now St. Mary Magdalene.  All of us are somewhere along the way of our walk.  Some of us may still be the sinners at the dinner table.  Others probably are growing in the faith.  And some are so long on the way, they have become witnesses in their own right.

I don’t like that I have used “stage” language.  That implies we do one stage and, like a step, leave that stage and move to the next.  I do like the phase language I also used.  I move between phases.  I know all too well that in an instant I can be a sinner and we begin all over!  But faith is about progress, not perfection.  Saints are those far into their progress.  I am ok; I am on the way.