Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
Tomorrow (Saturday) is the Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene, in looking around for info on Mary, I found a page by Vicente Durán Casas S.J. - Dean of the Philosophy Faculty, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia. Here below is part of what he'd written about Mary Magdalen and Rainer Maria Rilke ...
In 1911, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was walking absentmindedly down Rue du Bac, in Paris, and when he entered an antique bookstore, he started to pry into an old manuscript that contained an anonymous French sermon of the 17th century. As he read it the literary beauty that had fallen under his eyes by mere chance, and that had touched his intelligence and moved his heart astounded him. The text, called L’amour de Madeleine (Magdalene’s Love), had apparently been discovered by abbé Joseph Bonnet in Saint Petersburg’s Imperial Library, and some consider that due to the literary characteristics, it should be attributed to the famous preacher Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704). Rilke quickly bought the text, translated it into German in his austere room of Rue de Varenne and showed it to the world. His words about it are precise: “an extraordinary sermon, luminous, of a true spiritual relevance” ....
(snip)
.... The text begins like this: “Magdalene, Jesus’ saintly lover, loved him in his three conditions: she loved him alive, she loved him dead, she loved him resurrected. She showed the tenderness of her love for Jesus Christ present and alive, the perseverance of her love for Jesus Christ dead and buried, the impatience and the transport, the outbursts, the fainting fits and the excesses of her helpless love for Jesus resurrected and ascended to heaven”.
- the page
And here is a bit from Creighton University's Daily Reflection page ...
Today is the celebration of Mary Magdalene as the ‘apostle to the apostles’ (as the early Church referred to her). It was clear to the early Christians reading of the scriptures, that Mary Magdalene was indeed a messenger/preacher of the good news that Jesus was risen, and as all four gospels testify, Mary Magdalene and the women were the first to bring the good news to the other sisters and brothers who were still mourning Jesus’ death.
Unfortunately the Catholic Church of the west seemed to lose sight of this tremendous role of Mary Magdalene for over 1400 years from the 5th century until the late 20th century, teaching instead, a tradition that confused Mary Magdalene with the penitent woman of the gospels (and traditionally referring to her as a repentant prostitute). In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church revised its liturgical calendar and dropped the definer, ‘penitent’, and finally aligned their teachings with the Church of the East by renaming Mary Magdalene as a saint.
- Daily Reflection for July 22nd, 2006 by Cathy Weiss Pedersen
In 1911, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was walking absentmindedly down Rue du Bac, in Paris, and when he entered an antique bookstore, he started to pry into an old manuscript that contained an anonymous French sermon of the 17th century. As he read it the literary beauty that had fallen under his eyes by mere chance, and that had touched his intelligence and moved his heart astounded him. The text, called L’amour de Madeleine (Magdalene’s Love), had apparently been discovered by abbé Joseph Bonnet in Saint Petersburg’s Imperial Library, and some consider that due to the literary characteristics, it should be attributed to the famous preacher Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704). Rilke quickly bought the text, translated it into German in his austere room of Rue de Varenne and showed it to the world. His words about it are precise: “an extraordinary sermon, luminous, of a true spiritual relevance” ....
(snip)
.... The text begins like this: “Magdalene, Jesus’ saintly lover, loved him in his three conditions: she loved him alive, she loved him dead, she loved him resurrected. She showed the tenderness of her love for Jesus Christ present and alive, the perseverance of her love for Jesus Christ dead and buried, the impatience and the transport, the outbursts, the fainting fits and the excesses of her helpless love for Jesus resurrected and ascended to heaven”.
- the page
And here is a bit from Creighton University's Daily Reflection page ...
Today is the celebration of Mary Magdalene as the ‘apostle to the apostles’ (as the early Church referred to her). It was clear to the early Christians reading of the scriptures, that Mary Magdalene was indeed a messenger/preacher of the good news that Jesus was risen, and as all four gospels testify, Mary Magdalene and the women were the first to bring the good news to the other sisters and brothers who were still mourning Jesus’ death.
Unfortunately the Catholic Church of the west seemed to lose sight of this tremendous role of Mary Magdalene for over 1400 years from the 5th century until the late 20th century, teaching instead, a tradition that confused Mary Magdalene with the penitent woman of the gospels (and traditionally referring to her as a repentant prostitute). In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church revised its liturgical calendar and dropped the definer, ‘penitent’, and finally aligned their teachings with the Church of the East by renaming Mary Magdalene as a saint.
- Daily Reflection for July 22nd, 2006 by Cathy Weiss Pedersen
posted by crystal | 6:21 PM
16 Comments:
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delete, delete, delete...Crystal I wanted to post a link and blogger would not accept the tag. I will send it to you by email or try later.
OK, Paula.
Crystal,
Your post brings back old thoughts of Mary Magdalene when I was a young boy. As children we had a saying in French about her which was not very nice. It rhimed in French and we found it kind of funny. It went something like this. Marie Magdalene, tes culotte sont plaine jusqu'a la semaine prochaine. All who read and write French, I apologize for any spelling mistakes. Anyway in English it would go something like this. Mary Magdalene, your pans are full until next week. In all fairness, we really did not know what we were really saying.
Later on as an alter boy, I often thought about what she might have felt when she met Jesus. Not once did I think that she ever thought sexually about HIM because I believed that she automatically knew that He was who He said He was. I honestly always thought and still do think that She always had genuine LOVE for HIM and lust of The Body never entired the picture. My faith in Her as far as respecting Jesus could never be changed by Dan Brown or anyone else unless God convinced me that I was living a lie.
Thank you for the trip down memory lane.
ONe thing I guess I'll just never understand about Christianity, is why physical/sexual love and respect are seen as mutually exclusive and not complimentary.
great post, intereting stuff. Happy Marry Magdalene's feast day!
Victor - thanks for your comment :-)
MM - Hi :-) I think I'd have agreed with you, that christianity sees a division between romantic love and respect, but the more I learn about it, the less I think that is so, or at least not so much so in catholicism.
But do you mean, that if Mary loved Jesus romantically, she would not be seen as respecting him? I had a post a while ago about spirituality and sexuality ... there is a tradition, not talked about all that much I guess, of having romantic/sexual feelings for Jesus/God of of his for us too ... Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, the Song of Songs, etc.
Wes - thanks for dropping by :-)
It seems to me that here as in so many instances, the institutional church's official interpretations have been less than conspicuously inspired.
Of course the church calls itself the Bride of Christ and says that therefore by decree whatever interpretations it opts for are inspired. But this in itself strikes me as much less than an inspired notion, and really transparently self serving for those who happen to wield institutional power at any point in time.
DaVinci codes aside, the more I read about Mary Magdelene in the gospels, the more I think Jesus must have had a special love for her. At the moment, she's definitely my favorite biblical character. Attuned to the voice of Jesus, and bold enough to follow him about; To use an off-color spanglish phrase *I* grew up with: ella tenia cojones grandes.
Where are you Crystal? I mean today is Monday, your last post was Friday. Alles in ordnung, oder?.:-).
Paula, I'm sick but should be better soon and back to posting again.
Darius, I'm no expert on how the church makes its interpretations, but it's an interesting subject ... papal infallibility, how doctrine developes, the primacy of conscience, etc. It's actually surprising how much wiggle room there is.
Matthew, :-)
:-(.Prayers on the way. Get well soon. Hugs.
crystal,
what's the "primacy of conscience?"
Matthew,
the idea of the primacy of conscience is that a catholic has not only the right, but the duty, to consult and adhere to their (fully informed) conscience, even if that means they will disagree with church teachings. Thomas Aquinas gets most of the credit for this idea and Pope JPII said ... "People are obliged to follow their conscience in all circumstances and cannot be forced to act against it." You can read more about it here and other places on the web.
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