This striking figure in the diocesan museum at Klagenfurt in Austria is thought to have originated in the baptismal chapel of St. John and St. Mary Magdalene in the curch at Weitenfeld.
Made c. 1160-70, St. Mary Magdalene carries a pot of ointment, her most usual attribute in medieval art.
resurrection was delivered into the hands of a single woman like. before anyone else, jesus and his wildfire blood came to her to tell her that yes, these miracles do happen, this future isn’t empty, you are saved, you are saved now and forever.
and who was she? mary, from a village by the sea. a girl who grew up singing saltwater hymns while sickness burned in her body. when the messy-haired, sunlight-boned wanderer burst into town with his pack of young rebels, she looked god right in his human eyes and said, “i’m not afraid. heal me.” she watched the romans kill him slowly, and she wept, and she ached, and she spent two nights sitting in the dirt outside the tomb, whispering prayers to the stars like it might be worth something, anything, everything. and it was.
and we couldn’t believe that christ would want to trust a woman before anyone else, so we wrote her down as a sinner and a person of bad character, even though she was neither. we made her name synonymous with prostitution, even though there’s no biblical evidence to support that. history likes to pretend she had little power but without her there would be no witness to the news.
a young woman is the mortal catalyst for one of the biggest turning points in christian theology! a young woman who runs to other women first! that’s who christ placed his trust in above everyone else to bear the sight of the resurrection. isn’t that spectacular?
Neither.
I think she loved the tousle-haired Rabbi Yeshua, this man from nowhere Judea with the dark eyes and the easy smile, who stood outside the city gates and preached to crowds. I think she loved the prophet who was also divine, the Son of God who got pebbles in his sandals while walking and had to lean on Peter’s shoulder to scrape them out. He could walk into the marketplace and draw every eye, open his mouth and speak words that burned the air, but he also told terrible jokes that made Judas scoff and pelt him with olives.
But in love? No. I think Mary Magdalene loved Jesus the way all the other disciples loved him—in a way that was platonic and difficult to describe; it was a love that made all other loves seem—not worse, but narrower, a
little myopic. As though they were missing a piece, falling short of some whole they could only glimpse, and only around him.Later, after everything, they’ll try to talk about it among themselves. But the words won’t come, won’t sit right, and they keep circling back to, it was like a dream, like being wine-drunk and warm for three years and then waking up the next morning cold, it was something, we’re not sure what but
it certainly was something.
#you guys can’t talk me out of a profound divine love that leaves romantic sexual familial and friendly love in the dust#we’re imitators of something bigger and more#and we’re good imitators what we make is beautiful#but it’s still just imitation
Statue of St. Mary Magdalene inside the Basilica Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Vézelay, France.
12th c.
by Someday man on Flickr.
bennu rising 