Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene

Lectionary: 603

On my bed at night I sought him
whom my heart loves–
I sought him but I did not find him.
I will rise then and go about the city;
in the streets and crossings I will seek
Him whom my heart loves.

Today marks the fourth annual celebration of the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene. Pope Francis raised this day from a memorial to a feast in 2016. (It would be the fifth but July 22, 2018 fell on a Sunday.) 

The feast accompanies next Wednesday’s memorial of Saint Martha, the sister of Saint Mary of Bethany. The two women’s stories were conflated by scripture scholars until recently; they now believe Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were not the same woman.

The Magdalene, unlike Martha and Mary of Bethany, ranks a feast rather than a memorial because she strongly resembles an apostle! Need I say some people have issues with that? Pope Francis stuck his neck out when he made this decision.

Feminist scripture scholars see her as the head and spokesperson for Jesus’s female disciples. The evidence is slim but interesting.

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”

Although she seems to be alone in John 20:1, she speaks for a group, “…we don’t know where they put him.”

But, historically, Mary has fascinated story tellers and artists and theologians for her sexuality. What was going on between her and Jesus? Was there something “The Church” doesn’t want “The Faithful” to know about?

On this feast day, the lectionary offers a choice of two readings; we may choose a passage from the Song of Songs, the most erotic book in the Bible, or the safer 2 Corinthians.

Several years ago I took it upon myself to do an amateur exploration of erotic poetry. It’s somewhat out of my usual field of study but there are entire sections of erotic literature in bookstores. I am prejudiced, no doubt, but I found the literature varied from too spiritual to too physical. The spiritual was insipid and the physical was either comical or disgusting. Of all the poems, only the Song of Songs gets it right. There is something radiant here which I do not find in secular literature.

“On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves; I sought him but did not find him.”

Which of us does not know that physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual longing? Which of us ever finds such a companion?

Few, if any, and only briefly.

There’s a lot of lonely people out there. And in here.

Mary Magdalene represents the erotic characteristics of love while the Blessed Mother represents the maternal. (Since children never want to suppose their mothers have a sexual life, the duty falls to another woman.) 

But several other women in the scripture have also been called “Mary Magdalene” including the woman caught in adultery and the notorious sinner who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair. Conflate these three and eroticism takes on the baggage of sin, guilt, and shame. The only woman in the gospel who might be allowed virtuous sexual pleasure is the bride of John 2. Of her, like the male adulterer of John 8, nothing is said. 

If I learned anything from my brief survey of erotic literature, it’s that it's hard to encompass the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of intimacy in a work of art. Not to mention the social, familial, and financial although those realities inevitably and forcefully invade the erotic.

I wept my way through La Boheme recently. The opera recognized, too late for poor Mimi, the medical dimensions of love. While the courtesan denied that her cough meant anything, her true lover Rudolfo tried to push the sick woman out of his life. They faced it together, as eros demands of lovers, only at the end.

The Gospel of John – to return to our feastday – offers a better resolution to erotic love, sublimation. That is making sublime.  

When the Lord tells the ecstatic woman, “Do not cling to me,” he teaches her that her love-energy must be directed elsewhere.  

"Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them..."

Both have work to do which is more important than their brief embrace. He must go to the Father; and she, to the brothers, to tell them, "I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Rather than the immediate gratification of sex which is doomed to operatic disappointment, the gospel directs our energy to lifelong, relational commitment. The Risen Lord and Mary Magdelene will find their union, communion, and satisfaction in the sacramental life of the Church, (which is a dominant theme of Saint John's Gospel.) That is where we hear, touch, taste, smell, and feel the physical presence of Jesus.
It is, I'll grant you, a hard sell in today's market. But we must always speak the Truth to a skeptical world.