Mary Magdalene embodies the capacity we all have to merge with the soul and receive divine guidance through a love that never ends. Mary was born in the first century in Magdala, Israel. She was the first to witness the resurrection, and for this reason is revered in Christianity as the Apostle to the Apostles. Author and Episcopal priest Cynthia Bourgeault relates that the Gospels of Thomas, Philip, and Mary Magdalene all reveal Mary not only as Jesus’s beloved companion, koinonos, but also as an equal partner in teaching and transmission. (p.42, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene.) Bourgeault believes that Mary Magdalene’s gospel contains a secret teaching that Christ gave to Mary so that she could pass though the seven stages to reach the soul, or the nous, which is the highest point of the soul. And it is this union with her soul that allows Mary to see the risen Christ.
In classic iconography Mary Magdalene is associated with an egg and the color red because of an Eastern Orthodox legend. It says that she used an egg to teach the court of Tiberius Caesar about resurrection. Caesar doubted her and responded that a person could no more rise from the dead than the egg in her hand turn red. The egg turned red immediately. Legends relate that Mary then traveled to the south of France to escape persecution and to continue her ministry. It is believed she lived the last thirty years of her life in the caves at St. Baume. There she met with Christ with a love that inhabits the human heart but that lives on beyond it.
When your soul selects her card:
Mary Magdalene represents the fierce, unwavering love that we all have access to within our own vulnerable hearts. It’s a love that renders all things sacred from the animals to the angels, from the poorest to the most powerful. It’s a love that sees the inherent worth of all things. And it’s a love that remains, even through the darkest times, even through death; her love is the one that resurrects.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene relates that Jesus came to unite us, to demonstrate to us a “true human being,” an “Anthropos,” meaning a person who is both fully human, and fully divine. This is what Mary became and it’s why she was so beloved to Jesus. She didn’t seek to follow him; she sought instead to become her true self.
Mary Magdalene reminds us that we have the power to receive vision from within. We are worthy of such proximity to the divine because that’s the other half of what it means to be truly human. She reminds us that there’s a bridge between heaven and earth, and that we are that bridge. And she wants us to remember that the truest church we can ever enter is in the heart. This is where our true power rests and where love never ends. “
- Excerpted from “The Divine Feminine Oracle” by Meggan Watterson; illustrated by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman
“Mary of Magdala”
Mixed Media
2018
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