Mary Magdalene: thoughts on her feast day
Today 22 July is the feast day of St Mary Magdalene. I love this image of a detail of a mosaic in the Resurrection Chapel in Washington National Cathedral, D.C in the USA. It shows Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Jesus Christ. Mary Magdalene has been the subject of so much speculation, denigration, imagination and admiration over the last 2000 years, it's hard to sort truth from legend and fiction. I prefer to stick to what the 4 Gospels in the New Testament tell us about her and also notice what they do not tell us. Here is who Mary Magdalene was not: Mary Magdale was not one of the other Marys in the New Testament e.g. Mary mother of Jesus or Mary sister of Martha and Lazarus of Bethany. Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, although she has been portrayed as such. Mary Magdalene was almost certainly not the anonymous sinful woman who annointed Jesus' feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Mary Magdalene was not Jesus' wife or mother of his child.