As we celebrate the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, let us consider this larger than life, constantly reimagined, and long misunderstood disciple of Jesus with the help of Dr. Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Johnson is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Brentwood in Long Island, New York, and a Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University in Manhattan. She has been a prolific scholar throughout her academic career, publishing over 100 articles and ten books, including the much acclaimed She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. She was the first woman to earn a doctorate from the Catholic University of America, ultimately going on to establish and develop the field of feminist theology over several decades of work. She has also served as the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and is an expert on the dialogue between science and religion, both of which she taught in primary and secondary Catholic schools.

As today’s reading indicates, Mary Magdalene was the first of Jesus’s disciples to discover the empty tomb and the first to encounter the resurrected Christ, which she then announces to the rest of the disciples. One of the most important and recognizable figures in the Christian bible and, arguably, in Western history, she is mentioned in the gospels more times than the majority of Jesus’s male disciples, ultimately becoming the most significant witness to His resurrection. Since then, her life has yielded a profusion of different interpretations: as a devout follower of Jesus, by Ambrose, among others; as Jesus’s most beloved disciple and the only one who genuinely understood his teachings, in the non-canonical Gospel of Mary; and in fictional biographies of the High Middle Ages, as a fabulously rich noblewoman who either utilizes her wealth to support Jesus’s ministry or renounces it altogether. The most enduring of all interpretations, however, stems from a homily delivered by Pope Gregory I in 591 AD, in which he conflates Mary Magdalene with both Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and the unidentified sinner in Chapter 7 of Luke, who anoints Jesus’s feet with perfume. In this homily, Pope Gregory characterizes Mary’s sins as sexual in nature, identifies the seven demons cast out of her as the seven deadly sins, and frames her primarily as a repentant sinner. When, thereafter, Mary Magdalene’s identity was confused in popular myth with Mary of Egypt, her reputation as a sexually immoral woman turned penitent follower of Jesus was embedded in the common perception of her for the next 1,400 years.

In a talk at Fordham in 2015, Dr. Elizabeth Johnson addressed the issue of the misrepresentation of Mary Magdalene and its implications for Christian women throughout the centuries. Reiterating that Mary was not a prostitute, but a woman with the means to support Jesus and His disciples, as well as one of His most influential apostles, Dr. Johnson proceeded to explain the motivations for the defamation of her character. “Making her a prostitute has allowed her leadership role among the disciples to be generally forgotten,” she said, noting that even today, a millennium and a half after Pope Gregory’s infamous homily, “for those who prefer a Church with an exclusively male hierarchy, it is easier to deal with her as a repentant sinner than as an apostolic woman who had a voice and used it.” For this reason, understanding and communicating who Mary Magdalene really was has important implications for women’s roles in the Church. “The way we decide to tell her story can become [an] impetus for reclaiming the abilities of women. In rendering her visible, women also become visible.”

Today, on the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, let us reflect on how women’s roles in the Church have been suppressed in the centuries since Christ’s ministry, when the resurrected Jesus himself deemed Mary worthy to announce His return to the rest of His disciples. As Dr. Johnson asked her audience at Fordham: “The risen Christ could’ve picked anyone he wanted to communicate the groundbreaking news of his resurrection – and he chose this woman. What should this tell us about Jesus’s trust in her?”

Let’s also consider how the sexualization of women is used to delegitimise and shame all women, whether they conform to misogynist moral strictures or not. How are women’s personal lives examined and invaded in ways that they aren’t for men? How do we combat sexualization without demonizing healthy sexuality and sex workers?

In both art and media, as in Pope Gregory’s portrayal of Mary Magdalene, we find many virtuous and kind-hearted characters who are either currently or formerly sex workers (see Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata, Vivian in Pretty Woman, or Gigolo Joe in Spielberg’s A.I.). Why do you think this trope is so pervasive and enduring? Do these portrayals challenge or uphold male-dominated hierarchies?

Finally, what about Mary resonates most with you? If you are able to discuss this with others, how does your answer agree or differ? Do you think there is room for Mary to mean something different to each of us? Beyond correcting the historical record, what do you think the Church can do to celebrate Mary’s authentic character and better reflect what resonates with you?

Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker in 1933 and devoted her life to the movement until her death in 1980, was declared a Servant of God in March of 2000, when Pope John Paul II granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open her cause for canonization. Before the United States Congress in 2015, Pope Francis praised Dorothy and her passion for justice and social activism along with three other exemplary Americans – Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thomas Merton. Despite her inclusion in such esteemed company and her five decades of dedication to New York’s poor, there remains an inordinate focus on her personal life before conversion, from her drinking habits, to her romantic partners, to her decision to terminate a pregnancy, so that even at the celebration to conclude her cause’s diocesan phase, reference was made to her “promiscuous” past. Like Mary Magdalene’s spiritual devotion and witness to Jesus’s resurrection, Dorothy Day’s pacifism and commitment to solidarity with the poor are often, tragically, overshadowed by a preoccupation with her sexuality.

On June 29, 2002, the Danube Seven, a group of Catholic women consisting of Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Muller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Dagmar Braun Celeste, were ordained as priests on the Danube River by Bishop Rómulo Antonio Braschi and two other unnamed bishops. In response, the Church excommunicated the Danube Seven and Bishop Braschi, eventually issuing the “Decree on the Attempted Ordination of Some Catholic Women” to deny their appeal. Later, in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI authorized automatic excommunication for anyone “who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order.” Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Women Priests, descended from the Danube Seven, continue to grow globally and reclaim women’s God-given right to ordination.

Mary Magdalene at the Tomb was painted in 1990 by British artist Jane Dowling, who passed away on February 6, 2023  at the age of 97.

View at https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/mary-magdalene-at-the-tomb-222323

Description: Against a light background with pastel colors is a yellow and orange figure bent over at the base of a standing figure in lighter colors.