Mary Magdalene: Lost in the Jesus Narrative

Today is July 22, the feast day of Mary Magdalene. She was an important person in the Jesus movement, but nearly got lost when "The Boys" started to feel threatened by her.  By that, I mean that she was a leader within the movement, but when the Church started to take control of the Jesus narrative, she began to fade into the mist. That was exactly what they wanted. She had become very powerful. Women were not to have any kind of leadership in the Church and they had to be subjugated.  After all, they could create life and that creative force was a threat to all the men who dreamed of complete rule in every aspect of faith and life. Indeed, they tried to force women to become the meek, unstable, manipulated, cowering in fear beings that were the so-called ideal, but many females just pretended to act like that. Though, of course, some women believed that that was their role in life, many women did not. The Feminine went underground. Deep underground. But, live, it did. Today, that creative life force is beginning to really show its muscle: the nuns of the Catholic Church is only one example. Most women today, take for granted that they can work outside the home, hold political office, be faith community leaders, earn more money than men (though often they don't, even in the same jobs), marry or not, who they wish (though if it's another woman, not likely), live as a single mother head of household, have credit apart from husbands, make choices regarding giving birth, etc. I could go on, but all of these things were not a part of my growing up years. My daughter today knows nothing different. Let us take today to dedicate ourselves to furthering the power of womanhood. We have come a great distance, but there is much further to go to achieve women's fullest potential.

So, how do we know that Mary Magdalene got lost? First, we know almost nothing about her. There are only fragments of her existence in the Gospels, basically our only source of information. There are other, non-canonical gospels that talk about her, the best known is the Gospel of Mary. The Gospel of Thomas tells a narrative about the relationship between her and Jesus. You can read it and figure out what it was. I am of the opinion that she and Jesus were married. The Wedding at Cana may well be a story about Jesus' wedding, instead of someone elses. Based on the Gospel of Mary, we can surmise that she was a leader in the Jesus Movement. Though this information may not be totally accurate, again, you can make up your own mind. For me, it indicates that she was a leader. In many of the authentic letters of Paul, other women are portrayed as leaders of their faith communities. Later this was a major cause of concern to the male Church leaders. But at the time, this was not considered a problem. In the Gospels, on Easter morning, she is consistently the first one at the tomb and discovers something quite unusual. In the Orthodox Christian Church's tradition, she is named the Apostle to the Apostles. To me that says it all. I hold her in great esteem among those that followed Jesus.