Saint Mary Magdalen

St Mary MagdalenThe Church remembers liturgically the woman called the Apostles to the Apostles, the penitent woman who loved the Lord with a totality of being (Luke 8:2-3); from Bethany to the tomb to new life Mary give witness to something and to someone amazing! It is said that seven devils had been cast out of Mary (Mark 16:9). She is named as standing at the foot of the cross with the Blessed Mother and St John (Mark 15:40; Matthew 27:56; John 19:25; Luke 23:49). She saw Christ laid in the tomb, and she was the first recorded witness of the Resurrection. She met the Divine Presence, received forgiveness, and followed the Him to the Cross and was the first to witness the resurrection. The meeting of Jesus is the crucial point here. Tradition holds that Mary died in AD 68. The Greek Church says that she retired to Ephesus with the Mary, the Mother of God. Some of her relics are in Constantinople and others in France.

The Magdalen is the patron saint of those in process (journey) of conversion, of monks and nuns, of Dominicans, those who struggle with sexuality, southern France, and the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

Of St. Mary Magdalen, Bishop Alfred A. Curtis had this to say:

“We find in this Saint all that is noble, precious, beautiful and admirable; her creatures and contempt of self – and the root of all, her supreme and ultimate confidence in God was founded on the knowledge of her misery and nothingness, which made her despise self. She knew our Lord, He had reproved her for her crimes, but she turned to Him with her whole heart, and sought Him at a time and place that men might call unseemly. Oh, what a gift to know and loathe one’s self, and at the same time to believe that God does not loathe us! Let us ask St. Magdalen to get for us that confidence which she possessed in such a supreme degree.” (The Sisters of the Visitation of Wilmington (1913). The Life and Characteristics of Right Reverend Alfred A. Curtis, D.D. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons.)