Memory Of Her

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he had told her. (John 20:11-18)

Mary Magdalene is once again prominent in Jesus’ life, and death.  John has Mary as a central figure, but our Church has not been so kind.  For example, according to Father James Martin in America Magazine (July 2011), Strictly based on the evidence in the Gospels, Mary Magdalene enjoyed an exalted standing. She was not only the first one to whom Jesus appeared after the Resurrection, but also the one who proclaimed the news of his resurrection to the other disciples, including those who would be the leaders of the early church communities: Peter, James, Andrew, and the rest.

Thus comes Mary’s traditional title: “Apostle to the Apostles.” Her fidelity to Jesus during the Crucifixion, as well as Jesus’ appearance to her, are marks of distinction that place her, at least in terms of her faith, above the men. Some of the “extracanonical,” or “apocryphal,” gospels (that is, those not included by the early church councils with the traditional four Gospels) picture her as the most favored of all the disciples. “[Christ loved] her more than all the disciples,” says the text known as The Gospel of Philip.

Perhaps it was convenient for the early church fathers to dismiss Mary Magdalene and even insult her as a prostitute, fearful of what her role would mean for the place of women in the early church. As Jane Schaberg, a professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy, writes in The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, “The pattern is a common one: the powerful woman disempowered, remembered as a whore or whorish.”

As many historians have noted, the exaltation of a relatively few women in the early church—most notably the Virgin Mary— occurred at the same time that the contributions of almost every other woman in Jesus’ circle were forgotten, ignored, or actively suppressed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s influential book In Memory of Her, a reconstruction of the contributions of women among the disciples and in the early church, takes its title from the Gospel tale of the woman who anoints the feet of Jesus. In response to the woman’s selfless action, Jesus announces that whenever the story is told, it will be told in memory of her.

Yet, as Schüssler Fiorenza notes, the Gospel writers don’t bother to give us this woman’s identity: “Even her name is lost to us.” Despite Jesus’ instruction to his disciples, the church preserved no memory of her. In a trenchant aside, Schüssler Fiorenza says, “The name of the betrayer is remembered, but the name of the faithful disciple is forgotten because she was a woman.” Given this milieu, it is not surprising that the role of someone like Mary Magdalene would be elided by the evangelists and the early church. (end)

We all should elevate Mary Magdalene’s status and remember she was the “Apostle to the Apostles.”  And, Fiorenza has it right.

Deacon David Pierce