Mary the Tower

On my recent travels in Italy, there was a lot of visiting churches and seeing artwork. If you like church architecture or art, Italy is your jam! In the tidal wave or art, it is easy to be so overwhelmed as to stop noticing anything. So perhaps it only makes sense that one ends up focusing on something particular, so as not to end up completely 'lost at sea'. For me it was images of the archangel Gabriel visiting the Blessed Virgin Mary (the Annunciation) and images that focused on or included Mary Magdalene. As today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene, I decided to have a look back through some of her portrayals!

There were any number of images of Mary at the empty tomb meeting a very etherial, almost lighter-than-air looking Jesus (we'll leave aside the issue of extremely pale skin tone in these images, that would be a whole discussion in itself!) carrying a gardening implement. After all, the encounter occurs when Mary speaks to this mystery character, 'supposing him to be the gardener' (John 20:15). There might be Peter and John discussing in the background, or the other two women who had come with Mary to anoint the body, but the centre of the action is the meeting of Jesus and this particular faithful disciple, who is then sent to tell everyone else the good news.

What a profound moment! It is not surprising that the character of Mary Magdalene came to have a particular place of devotion in the early church and the Middle Ages, although perhaps this placed more weight on Mary than the actual, historical person could bear? The resurrection in the garden, with Jesus mistaken for a gardener, is rich with symbolism, a long thread over history connecting us back to the first garden where Adam and Eve failed in their calling. Jesus the second Adam has now overcome the curse of sin and death. And here is Mary, who came to be conflated with other Mary-s in the gospels, implicated in sins assumed to be sexual in nature. She became an icon of sin and repentance, pictured there at the feet of Jesus in the garden.

The details on the life of Mary Magdalene are limited. It has taken centuries to bat down the erroneous assertion that she was a reformed prostitute (no thanks to you Pope Gregory the Great). What is know of her is that she experienced a remarkable healing (Luke 8:2) and that she, along with other noteworthy and named women supported Jesus' ministry financially and at least some of the time accompanied Jesus and the 12 apostles.

I imagine that experiencing dramatic healing, being closely associated with Jesus' ministry, witnessing your beloved teacher and friend's gruesome and painful death, and afterwards encountering him in resurrected form and being the first person to carry that news to all your other close friends would affect a person. Spiritual transformation has its highs, but there are also challenges. When you've exeperienced the highs, how do you manage the lows, or just needing to exist in the mundane everyday-ness of life? I suppose some people manage well, living with a steady, quiet, even-keeled spiritual serenity through day-to-day life... But I can certainly sympathise with those who feel the extremes.

Some of the images I encountered including Mary embracing a skull, which is not exactly a normal thing to do. But it does convey the sense of her consiciousness of mortality, while focusing on the eternal. If you had had such profound experiences with Jesus, and then seen him go away, wouldn't you be just as happy to finish your earthly days and be with him? (Paul expresses this sentiment in Philippians 1).

But the images I was most taken with were those of Mary as wilderness prophet, looking very John the Baptist-like indeed, with her hair loose, and her clothes in tatters (one of the mythologised Mary stories is that after the resurrection she lived out her days in the wilderness alone, until her clothes were rags falling off her). John the Baptist was a singular character. People were drawn to him, but I'm guessing he wasn't great for small talk. Perhaps these images convey this sense of Mary Magdalene after the resurrection: a profoundly changed, profoundly spiritual person, a person who could speak confidently of Jesus, his life, his teachings and the fact of his resurrection, but maybe also not great on small talk. One explanation of the name we know her by, Mary Magdalene, is not so much that she was from the town of Magdala, but that she had the nickname of 'Mary the Tower' (migdal = tower in Hebrew). Jesus did seem to like giving nicknames--he called James and John 'sons of thunder' (Mark 3:17)! If I heard that someone was called Mary the Tower, I would imagine that she was a strong character, a force to be reckoned with, unshakable.

The Collect for the Feast Day of St Mary Magdalene

Almighty God, whose Son restored Mary Magdalene

to health of mind and body

and called her to be a witness to his resurrection:

Forgive our sins and heal us by your grace,

that we may serve you in the power of his risen life;

who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen.