She Was There

Of all people whom Jesus freed from demon possession, one woman stands out. She’d accumulated seven demons. Today we might disbelieve a devil had anything to do with her problems; they were rather a host of physical or psychological illnesses. Serious, indeed, but possession?

Ask several of my friends who have dabbled with the occult if there is a not-so-holy spirit world and they’d tell you. The dark powers have a mesmerizing way of taking hold. However, the reason the Son of God came to earth was “that He might destroy the works of the devil.” To Satan, those are fighting words. But he lost the battle over Mary Magdalene.

Any demon, let alone seven, would have caused Mary immense torment. The Church Fathers said that the possessed are most pitiable of all suffering people, because their ability to will is nearly stripped away. They are marionettes under another will that never wishes them well. In contrast, when Jesus cast out her malevolent puppeteers, Mary Magdalene experienced not only that he was a man of unequaled power, but unequaled love. He gave her freedom to be and to choose.

Her choice? Great fidelity and love for her deliverer. She stood at the forefront of devoted women disciples who were often with Jesus and the twelve male disciples when he went through towns to preach his Good News.

Ah, yes, there was strong love between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. So the old tales resurrected by Dan Brown and others claimed she married him and had his children whose descendents became royalty in France. The postmodern world ridicules the idea that there can or even should be intense love between adults without it being sexual. Yet Christ was passionate for all people at a level most of us don’t understand. He prayed for us “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.”

Mary was there when the Pharisees put pressure on Jesus, likely there when Pilate turned him over for execution. The Gospels reported she witnessed his crucifixion, but she must have first seen him drag his cross up the Jerusalem road Latin Christians later named Via Delarosa, “Road of Suffering.”  She saw him fall from pain, blood loss, exhaustion, the weight of the wooden beam. She felt a small gladness when soldiers forced Simon to help carry that beam. She supported Jesus’ mother on that Via until they reached the Place of the Skull, where executions took place.

From a distance Mary Magdalene watched the soldiers nail and bind Jesus to the cross, winch it up, and drop it into the hole. She moved close when it was feasible, saw Jesus struggle for every breath, and heard every word he gasped. She stayed through the darkness at noon and felt the earth quake. She joined the deep mourning of creation over the death of its Maker as he gave up his spirit.

While the twelve disciples of the Savior, with the exception of John, had betrayed, denied, or abandoned Him, Jesus’ mother, Mary Magdalene and other women remained by his side. How could they bear to witness all this horror and injustice and not totally collapse with grief & rage?

For Mary Magdalene, somehow the strength of demons had been transformed into the strength of faith. She was faithful to him not only in days of fame, but in extreme humiliation and insult to the bitter end—and beyond.

Mary stayed at the cross while Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took the body down, and accompanied them to the cemetery so she knew where to return to finish anointing the body. She watched as they covered over the cave with a large stone. Only then did she reluctantly leave because of Passover and Sabbath curfew laws.

Barely after the Sabbath was over Mary hurried to the tomb. She was the first person there. Is it any surprise then that she was the first person to see her dear Rabbi, alive, and speaking her name in that tone she knew so well? She was the first to go back to where the Disciples were hiding out and to tell them, “The Lord is Risen.”

St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, the first in the world to preach the Resurrection.

The Disciples judged Mary’s report as hysterical woman talk, and Jesus had to appear to them several times before they comprehended. Obviously their slowness did not mean they lost out. Yet somehow they missed out on the unadulterated delight of the one disciple who never left.

I am far away from that time. I am one of billions who have not seen nor heard Christ, whose hands have never touched him. But I can be one of those whom Jesus praises, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.” After all, I know something of the love of the risen Lord repairing broken areas in my life. I can emulate Mary Magdalene, my Apostle in faithfulness and devotion. Perhaps I might catch a spark of her relief and joy in that Easter Sunday garden — he’s not dead, he is risen!

Among Us Women

Recently, my mother-in-law, Irene, a devout Roman Catholic, passed away. At her viewing, I participated in my first Rosary service. The word rosary comes from the Latin “rosarium,” rose garden, and truly one is led from one fragrant moment to the next during this devotion.

The Rosary is made up of several sections, including the Lord’s Prayer, the Gloria Patri, and meditations on Scripture from Christ’s life (the Mysteries). Honor and appeal to the Holy Virgin Mary winds throughout:

“Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

As I sat before Irene’s casket in its rose garden of bouquets, two phrases of the devotion wafted fresh meaning to me.

St. Luke records that Elizabeth was the first person to say, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” After Mary accepted the call to bear the Son of God, she hurried to the best source of support and celebration she knew, her also-pregnant cousin. Elizabeth’s first glimpse of this young lady enveloped her with joy. So much did the Holy Spirit of God fill her that her own baby leaped inside her. She knew instantly that Mary was carrying the Messiah and burst out with praise for her and the new little life growing within.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among humanity.

Above every one, God chose this woman in which to dwell in the fullness of his incarnation. She was ordinary in many ways. But unlike most of us, Mary was willing to receive devastatingly Holy Mystery unto herself although only God knew what would become of her in the process.

Elizabeth’s praise declared for all generations the position Mary holds among women.

I saw in my mind’s eye the Blessed Virgin standing vanguard at the front of ranks of women stretching for eons into God’s presence. Women two thousand years old walked with my grandmothers, mother, and now my mother-in-law. Behind these emerged millions more from all places and conditions, my living female relatives, friends, and yes, even myself.

Mary then moved among us, hugging this one, smiling at another, talking some sense into that one. She did not demand attention; she always pointed us to Jesus. Yet in doing so, she assumed a major role to bear us up, to strengthen our resolve to live, and die, in as full of the Holy Spirit’s grace as we could hold.

And we will die. There’s nothing like the funeral of a loved one to illuminate the fading blooms that we are. Death cannot hide itself behind flowers, satin, and lace.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.”

Now is to celebrate Irene’s blessed life, however imperfect. Now is to grieve her earthly loss. Now is to glimpse our own imperfect but blessed lives. Now is to face our mortality.

At the hour of our death, there is no doing it over. We sinners being made into saints need all the appeals such a vanguard can bring to the Throne to help us be faithful to the end.

Mary is a woman like me, but a far stronger, wiser one, and sometimes I find myself shy to request her prayers. I am right there with Elizabeth when she followed up her ecstatic greeting with, “But why am I so favored, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Yet apparently this great Lady, the God-bearer, wants to come among us women. As our principal spiritual mother, she enfolds us in the wide reach of her supplications. Above all, she wishes us to be receptive to her example and make it our business to say to her Son, 

“O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in. Be born in us today.”

So is Woman an Add-On?

In my recent blog post, “Can You Really Know Yourself?” the two authors I quoted threw the word “man” and “mankind” around with the carefree abandon of conventional 4th and 18th century linguistic use. Probably the women of St. Basil’s and Alexander Pope’s day knew these words often included both genders. Going further back, Jewish and Christian women of ancient times most likely understood that the Scripture text, “Let us make man in our image” included woman, too.” Right? Well, maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t.

Today, gender inclusive language is one attempt to clarify for both sexes that females have equal presence and participation in any reference to humans as a whole. This is an example of how as a society changes in its self-concept, its language also changes. But let’s face it, inclusive language is still in the awkward stage. For example, “When the student cites an entry from an encyclopedia in [his/her; his or her] essay, [he/she; s/he; he or she] should follow the Chicago Manual of Style.” Makes for a beautifully flowing sentence, doesn’t it?

So until our language accurately and succinctly expresses gender inclusion, certain accommodations are called for. Both men and women have historically required reference points that help them come to know themselves. In the Bible’s case particularly, all of the human race needs to be able to see itself appropriately reflected in its narratives and poems on occasion. Thus, it has not only been since the 1970s and 80s that people have worked at gender inclusive communication. In its ancient languages, the scripture of Genesis 1:26-27 used the word “man” (Heb.: 'ādām; Grk.: anthrōpos) to identify the category of creature, then succinctly clarified the word’s scope of meaning.

Likewise, St. Basil was concerned that his 4th century listeners clearly understand who the “man” is in Gen. 1:27:

“Man!” says the woman, “And what about me? It is the male who was created, for,” she says, “He did not say ‘her’ who is man, but by the term ‘man’ He is shown to mean the masculine.” But no! in order that nobody . . . should take the expression “man” . . . to refer only to the male, the Scripture has added: “male and female He made them.”[1]

We women, then, are not simply add-ons to God’s initial creation of the imago dei. As Basil went on to emphasize, “The woman also possesses, like the male, what has been created in the image of God.”[2]

[1] Johanna Manley, ed., trans., Wisdom. Let Us Attend (Menlo Park, Calif.: Monastery Books, 1997), 712. 
[2] Ibid.