St. Mary Magdalen - Our Community Foundation Day - 22nd July 2025
It is striking to list the verses in the New Testament where Mary Magdalen is explicitly mentioned. They cluster around her presence at the death and resurrection of Jesus. Apart from that we only know that Jesus cast seven demons out of her and that she became one of his followers. In a culture where a woman’s testimony was of no account it says a lot that about Mary Magdalen’s role in the infant church that she could not be written out of the accounts of the resurrection.
As I was thinking about what I might say about her today the phrase that came to mind was ‘First to meet Jesus risen, first to perceive the Christ’ from our 1st Nocturn respond at Vigils. What did it mean that she was ‘first to perceive the Christ’?
We look to Peter’s confession on the road to Caesarea Philippi as the first confession of Jesus as the Messiah, the anointed one, which in Greek is ‘Christ’. But when Jesus started talking about the suffering, rejection and death that lay ahead Peter could not take it and rebuked Jesus. As we know Jesus then rebuked Peter as ‘Satan’, as one who was tempting him to turn back from the path that he must walk. Although Peter had named Jesus as the Christ he had not perceived what that meant. He was looking for a victorious Christ/Messiah who would save the Jewish people from their oppressors. He could not comprehend a suffering, dying Messiah, even if that Messiah would rise to new life. He could not perceive the Christ beyond his own ideas and expectations.
Jesus then goes on to tell his disciples ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’ At the last supper in John’s gospel Peter says that he will lay down his life for Jesus yet Jesus already knows that when the crunch comes Peter will deny him. He was not able to follow him to the cross.
We often talk of Jesus being abandoned by all his disciples but in fact it was only some, primarily the men, that abandoned him. Mary Magdalen and other women stayed with him through his suffering and death and accompanied him to the tomb. It was they who went to the tomb after the Sabbath to do what needed to be done for their crucified master.
I’m sure we all find the most poignant resurrection account is that of Mary Magdalen’s encounter with the risen Lord in John’s gospel, chapter 20, which we will hear read at the Liturgy. Her life had been transformed by her relationship with Jesus, she had found healing and became one of his followers. Now in the garden it seemed she had lost everything.
Then Jesus calls her name and she knows that he has returned. She turns to see the one she loves, no doubt reached out to him. But then ‘do not cling to me’… Jesus asked her to let go, to deny her desire to hold on to him physically. How hard that must have been. But then as she let him go she was entrusted with his message to the disciples: 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' Her ability to deny herself, to face suffering and death, brought her to the place where she became the first to perceive that Jesus through his death and resurrection had not failed in his mission but that he was the cosmic Christ bringing new life to all people. She left Jesus in the garden and became the first apostle of the resurrection.
Her story is wonderful example of what unfolds when we let go the things we cling to, things that give us comfort or that seem to give meaning to our lives, in order to embrace the new life that God has prepared for us. Our founding sisters and all our sisters who have gone before us, whom we remember on our Foundation Day, are also an inspiring example for us. We would not be here if our sisters through the generations had not been prepared to let go and move on to follow God’s call into something new.
Even in the short time I have been in the community we have had to let go cherished ways of doing things and be open to other ideas as to where new life is to be found. Our ability to face tough questions and take difficult decisions gives us a vitality that others see, even as we decline in numbers and increase in age.
Today we are doing something new in welcoming Jo as a Life-time Companion, confirming a relationship that has been forming over the past few years of exploration for us and for her. I pray that this step will enable Jo to enter more fully into God’s call for her and that we would all be blessed by her presence with us.
Mother Anne - 22nd July 2025