To celebrate the feast day of Mary Magdalene is to celebrate an archetypical strong female leader. Preacher, teacher, the one disciple who really understood Jesus’ message… she was truly “apostle to the apostles.”
To bring her into worship is to take a step in the direction of balance: not patriarchy, not matriarchy, but partnership as it was understood in some of the earliest Christian communities. Healing the rift between masculine and feminine that lives inside each of us.
All night I lay on my bed
I sought him whom my soul loves.
I sought him but did not find him.
Mary, we did not know you.
Kept hidden for centuries you were despised,
A Queen not seen, under harlot’s disguise.
Mary, we did not know you.