In a Word . . . Magdala

Yesterday, July 22nd, 2016, was the first Feast day of St Mary Magdalene. Here I doff my cap to those betters on this page whose space I tread on. I do so softly.

Last June Pope Francis directed that what had been St Mary Magdalene's memorial day be elevated to that of a feast day. He also restored to her the title "Apostle to the Apostles", as she had announced the resurrection to the apostles who announced it to the world.

In one fell swoop then she went from least to foremost.

She got me into trouble twice. It was her reputation.

In the year 2000, marking the second millennium of Christianity, this sometimes humble scribe wrote a weekly column for the paper's foreign pages, titled The Jesus Reports. It recounted the journey of said preacher as he travelled Palestine and in May, 2000, reported how one Mary Magdalene "admitted she had worked with the 'Hot Stuff' escort agency in the city and that she and other women there had provided services to religious and political figures at the behest of the Scruples building company. It was seeking the contract to extend the Temple courtyard at the time. It won the contract".

This scandal, it continued, as well as provoking many denials had led to "a lively trade in T-shirts" which carried the message, "I did not sleep with Mary Magdalen, either!"

Well, I was taken apart in a letter to the editor by a priest who objected to this portrayal of Mary “as a prostitute”. He said: “There is no biblical evidence to support it.”

The same priest saw a darker shade of red that July when I referred to Mary of Magdala as a woman “well known to men in this part of the country”.

The priest expressed particular surprise at this as he “had written to your paper last May to say that modern scholarship does not support such a view of Mary of Magdala”. The priest, of course, was correct where modern scholarship is concerned.

But there is a reason why those unforgiving places were known as Magdalene Laundries and it had nothing to do with Mary being Apostle of the Apostles.

Mary was from Magdala. In Hebrew it means "elegant", "great", "tower", or "great place". It was a town on the western shores of Lake Galilee.

[ inaword@irishtimes.com ]