Say WHAT?!?!? Huge news in the Catholic world pertinent to us mystics and goddess hippies.
Pope Francis has decided to raise Mary Magdalene’s memorial day to a full on FEAST day, TODAY July 22nd, therefore hugely elevating her status in the church. Woohoo!
Fest days are held for all the other apostles (save the biggest: Peter and Paul get special Solemnity events, which are a step up from a feast) meaning that Mary Magdalene is finally being honoured on the level as apostle.
Archbishop Roche (one of the English archbishops of the Catholic Church) said that the Pope’s decision was related to the fact that the Church is in a “Year of Mercy” – as far as I can figure out, that means everyone recognises how lovely Jesus was and everyone tries to be more like him. Archbishop Roche says “The Holy Father Francis took this decision precisely in the context of the Jubilee of Mercy to signify the importance of this woman who showed a great love for Christ and was much loved by Christ,”
She is often regarded as the saint whose love was strongest and sweetest, for as Jesus said to his disciples who were all like “eww gross a sexy woman don’t touch her”, those who are forgiven the most, love the most. Peeps think that maybe she was a prostitute before she met Jesus (and being straight, what other work was there for unmarried women to do in 10BC Middle East?)
For those of you who are not down with the Magdalene, she was Jesus’ female compadre in his team of disciples: there were the 12 disciples, Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. She’s always been discounted for being a woman, therefore she didn’t count as a disciple, or as anyone of spiritual merit. I don’t think Peter, John or Paul thought much of her.
However, she was a bonafide love machine, and deeply devoted to Jesus. She stayed with him as he suffered on the cross longer than all the other disciples: she was first at the tomb on the day of Jesus’ resurrection, and so she was the one who saw him first, and chose her to go tell his other disciples that he had risen again. (In fact, I think it speaks volumes that Jesus chose to share the first news of his resurrection with the devoted Mary Magdalene rather than one of the dudes).
Of course, the dudes didn’t believe Mary. WTF dudes. Your preacher is Jesus, who loves everyone and helps everyone and treats everyone as equal, but you can’t quite manage to do that yourselves and just BELIEVE the woman on your team… #theReasonIamNotChristian #FuckYouPatriarchy
After Jesus went back to heaven for good for good this time, she stayed and carried out her ministry. There is a Gospel of Mary Magdalene, I am told, that has had very little attention paid to it. There is a big school of thought that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife.
I’m just gonna straight out copy this paragraph from Lauri Ann Lumby’s excellent free introductory course to the Magdalene, which I TOTALLY recommend if you are looking for more Magdalene juice:
“Mary’s story doesn’t end here, however. While canonical scripture never mentions her again, many of the books that didn’t fit the political agenda of the Roman Emperor, Constantine mention Mary and the ministry that she continued after the resurrection. The Gospel of Mary, in particular, singles Mary out as privy to continued encounters with Christ during which secret teachings are imparted upon her – teachings only she was able to receive. When she tried to share these teachings with the other disciples, they told her she was crazy and wondered why Jesus would share these teachings with her (a woman!) and not with them – perhaps because they had not yet achieved the Oneness in Love that Jesus had come to teach them. Mary, indeed, had.”
Mary Magdalene teaches us a lot about how Jesus viewed women: the fact that Jesus loved women as he loved men, that Jesus wasn’t bothered about original sin or any of that anti-feminist shit, how Jeus believed women were his equal.
Mary Magdalene also represents All Women in her silencing, how she has been discounted, dismissed for being a woman, dismissed for being weak and inferior to men.
Now, I didn’t grow up in the church like many people did, almost all my early biblical study was learnt through watching the fabulous 60’s Rock Opera Jesus Christ SuperStar but as anyone who knows my instagram feed can attest to I love hanging out in churches and I am so happy that the Divine Feminine is being recognised just a little bit more in one of the biggest faiths in the whole world.
FUCK YES!!!!
If you want to learn more about Mary Magdalene, I highly recommend Lauri Ann Lumby’s excellent courses at the Mystery School of the Goddess. There are some fab free ones and some special offers on her more in depth courses to celebrate the Feast of the Magdalene this July.
(P.S. – FTW means For The Win. I LITERALLY only just got this. I thought it meant Fuck The World.)
You keep writing these kinda things n spread the truth dear sister mermaid/ goddess/ witch much love 💜
Love this article! I had no idea that Mary Magdalene was a disciple. Thank you for enlightening me. And yes, totally agree that Jesus must have been the first feminist and she the chosen one!