Happy Mary Magdalene Day (one day late)

[Mary Magdalene has things to say to us today even when we realize that we've confused her with other women. PHOTO: Yvonne Elliman as "Mary Magdalene" is anointing Ted Neeley as "Jesus" in the film of Jesus Christ Superstar, something M.M. didn't do in the gospels.]

The Church sets aside July 22 to honor the woman who mistook the risen Jesus for a gardener. It's a heart-stopping moment when he says simply, "Mary," and she recognizes the man she calls "Teacher." All four gospels agree that Mary Magdalene remained with Jesus at the crucifixion when his men shied away. All four gospels agree that she's the first person to proclaim the resurrection, for which she's sometimes called "the first apostle." Besides this, we're told that she's one of the women who supported Jesus and the apostles (Mark 15.40, Luke 8.3). Luke adds the intriguing note that "seven demons had gone out of her," by Jesus, we presume.

Historical Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene is not the adultress whom Jesus saved from stoning, Mary of Bethany who sat with Jesus while sister Martha worked in the kitchen, nor the woman who anointed Jesus's feet (unnamed in three gospels, identified in John's gospel as Mary of Bethany). Bart Ehrman, in Peter, Paul, & Mary Magdalene (a title aimed at Boomers) blames a sermon by Pope Gregory in 591 for mashing up different women into a kind of fantasy figure of a promiscuous woman who becomes a repentant servant to men. Ehrman pulls out the Mary Magdalene threads in the gospels and also digs into gnostic literature for numerous passages about her, including a Gospel of Mary.

Ehrman tells us what he infers about the historical woman Mary of Magdala. Historical references supported by archaeological digs suggest that her home town was a cosmopolitan center of leisure activities, like Las Vegas (198). Her "service" to Jesus and the apostles, like that of Joanna listed with her, appears to have been financial support. Whether Mary's wealth came from family, husband, or business, we can only speculate, but Ehrman shows how all three were possible back in the day. (Ehrman, Bart. Peter, Paul, & Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.)

By the way, Ehrman emphasizes that the "sinful woman" who anoints Jesus in Luke is neither (1) a prostitute, nor (2) Mary Magdalene, who's introduced in the following chapter. "Sinful woman," in this context, Ehrman writes, could be someone who ate some shrimp (189).

Mary Magdalene Superstar

Setting all that aside, the hybrid Mary Magdalene still appeals to our imagination, even for those uncommitted to Christianity. Exhibit A, what comes first to my mind and Ehrman's when we hear her name, is the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Fifty years after I obsessed over that show, I can still quote from memory Rice's lyrics for the character Mary Magdalene:

I don't know how to love him
I don't see why he moves me
He's a man
He's just a man
And I've had so many men before
in very many ways:
He's just one more.

(OMG - what did my parents think as I sang this along with the 8-track tape in our family stereo?) The worldly woman who gives up her independence to serve an idealist, confused but inspired by a love that isn't carnal -- this is great stuff. It occurs to me that it was also in the zeitgeist ca. 1970, when the story was replicated by flower children and, in a bad way, by Patty Hearst.

[See two reflections on Lloyd Webber: The First Things That Come to Mind (02/2013) and a second look occasioned by his memoir Unmasked (06/2018)]

Modern Magdalene in Poetry Poet Marie Howe explores the hybrid Mary in her collection Magdalene (New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2017). The book opens with a poem that I heard her read aloud. I'm not alone on the internet in calling this one of my favorite poems of all time. Here's what I blogged about it:

"Magdalene - The Seven Devils" [names] the seven devils that Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene (Mk 16.9) as if it had happened today:  "The first was that I was very busy."  Other demons include,  "I was worried," and, "envy, disguised as compassion."  But, she goes on tangents and has to start over: "Ok the first was that I was so busy."  The more Howe's Mary Magdalene coiled back, the more tightly wound up in the poem I was, nodding and laughing at feelings I owned. (from Marie Howe: You Must Remember "This" 07/2017)

Its form expresses character and reinforces the content. I'd love to hear the poem recited aloud by a comic, either Tig Notaro's world-weary tone, or Rosie Perez's cheerful Brooklynese, or Dolly Parton's comforting drawl. The poem cries out to be read aloud, no matter who does it.

Other poems in the collection with "Magdalene" in the title seem to form a narrative arc, not necessarily connected to Jesus in Palestine. Magdalene "...on Romance," ": The Addict," "...and the Interior Life," with other poems that lack the Magdalene name, imagine a woman "always sorry / righteous and wrong" ("When I did Wrong" 31), "a door slammer and screamer" ("Magdalene on Romance" 34) addicted to this kind of relationship, who "likes Hell" because

The worst had happened. What else could hurt me then?

I thought it was the worst, thought nothing worse could come.

Then nothing did, and no one.
("Magdalene: The Addict" 36)

From this bottom of the arc, she climbs up in steps that are other poems. Mary Magdalene may not have been the woman nearly stoned, but Howe goes there, anyway. "Magdalene: The Woman Taken in Adultery" imagines the near-death experience; "Next Day" she returns to the scene of the events described in the John 8, "free of the pretense of family now" that her husband and male relations had been ready to kill her -- to see the man who "scribbled in the dust" standing nearby (40).

Perspectives on the rest of the Gospel story follow in the collection: "The Teacher," "The Disciples," "Magdalene on Gethsemane," "Calvary." In "Magdalene Afterwards," the voice that once had seven devils now speaks for many women, with children, without, in heels, in a wheelchair, all "still hungry for I don't know what" "but "sometimes a joy pours through me" (51). Later, in a second poem called "The Teacher," it seems that several teachers are rolled into one who could be the one Magdalene called "Teacher," but her conclusion works regardless:

Can we love without greed? Without wanting to be first?

Everyone wanted to pour his wine, to sit near him at the table.

Me too. Until he was dead.

Then he was with me all the time. (69-70)

Among these "Magdalene" poems are many other poems not directly related. Several concern a fun mother-daughter relationship. The mother suggests, if they're reincarnated, "Next time, you be the mother" (73). "No way Jose" the daughter responds. A slice of life called "Delivery" is a gift -- a man late on a snowy night trudges up flights of stairs past Christmas decorations to deliver packages, and when she asks him about his Jamaican accent, he gives her "a smile so radiant" that she's "a young woman again" remembering "the sweetness of men I've loved" (88).

Next Mary Magdalene Day, let's remember to pour the wine and read Marie Howe's poetry aloud.

[My short essay Out of Ordinary Time (11/2019) includes appreciation for Howe's collection The Kingdom of Ordinary Time]