July 22 is the feast day for Mary Magdalene, an often misunderstood figure. You’ve doubtless noticed the number of women named Mary in the Bible. This has caused no end of confusion, going back to the early Church Fathers. The fifth century Pope Gregory The Great declared that Mary Magdalene was also the unnamed woman who was a sinner and anointed Jesus and Mary of Bethany, sister to Martha and Lazarus. That conflation became the official word of the Western Church, although in the Eastern Church (think Greek, Russian, Syrian, Macedonian Orthodox) they are regarded as three different women. Other writers during the early church era regarded Mary Magdalene as “the apostle to the apostles,” because she was sent (the meaning of the word apostle in Greek) to tell the remaining eleven men that Jesus had indeed been raised from the dead. She was among the women who followed Jesus and present at the crucifixion. The artistic upshot of Gregory’s pronouncement has been to show Mary of Magdala as a penitent sinner, often with red hair down to her waist and alone at a cave or in the wilderness, her eyes red from weeping, as she wept on the morning of the resurrection. It also gave painters the chance to portray her disheveled, possibly with a breast showing. Gregory’s idea is the source of Mary Magdalene being the patron saint of penitents, among several other fields, such as hairdressers and perfumers. (If Jesus cast out seven demons, surely at least one of them was a lustful demon.) And it explains the idea of Magdalene laundries, where “fallen” women in Ireland, under the auspices of first the Protestant and later the Catholic church and the Irish government, worked and were abused. PRAYER Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by your grace we may be healed of all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Saints Alive!
I have been privileged to offer Noonday Prayer at my church, usually on Thursdays, which doesn’t matter because it’s on Youtube forever. [It’s amazing what can be done with a smartphone and a smart, helpful parish administrator!] The service is brief, with a place for a meditation. We usually look at the Episcopal calendar of saints, who are nearly always honored on their death dates, not their birth dates. Here is a hymn by medieval saint Hildegard of Bingen to set the mood.
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