 Thank you all so much for being here. I thought we could begin in a word of prayer because I certainly need it. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us together this afternoon. We thank you for this wonderful conference and this wonderful place. We ask that you would be with us these next 45 minutes and for the Q and A as well. You would just steal our hearts, enlighten our minds, allow us to draw closer to you through encountering your word and particularly through encountering your daughter, Mary Magdalene. Help us to come to know her a little bit better this afternoon. Help us to come to a greater love of her, that same love that you had for her. And help us to see in her a model of holiness by which we can be transformed. We ask this through Christ our Lord, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Well, thank you all so much for being here. It's a huge privilege for me, a huge honor to be able to share with you for this period, just to talk about St. Mary Magdalene, who is certainly my favorite saint. Magdalene is also the name of the most important woman in my life, which is my 2009 Honda Accord. And actually there's a funny story of my car, so my Honda Accord passed 200,000 miles this summer. And back when I got the car, I was trying to decide what to name her. And I figured, okay, it has to be a female name, that's number one. And then I decided I wanted it to be a biblical name. And so the short list was Deborah, Lydia, and Magdalene. And so I eventually settled on Magdalene. But then the funny thing was, I actually, the only crash I've ever been in was the same day that I named her Magdalene. So I thought afterwards, maybe I should have called her Lazarus. But anyway, I believe St. Mary Magdalene was protecting me that day. What I want to do in this talk is share with you a bit of my own kind of spiritual and intellectual journey of getting to know Mary Magdalene. And as I shared last night, I want to both talk through some of the arguments, some of the kind of biblical exegesis when it comes to trying to discover who the real Mary Magdalene is. But then once we've done that, I want to turn to a more spiritual application. What does it mean for Mary Magdalene to be a model of holiness? And what can she teach us about journeying with Christ? I had a conversation just recently with a friend who was sharing this idea that so often when it comes to the faith, it's the most beautiful things and the holiest things that come under attack the most often. So if you think of something like the Eucharist or our lady or the papacy with all these things, they're so central to our Catholic faith. And they're the things that often come under fire. They often come under assault. And I would suggest it's the same with Mary Magdalene. I mean, she is a saint who has had so many detractors over the centuries, whether it's the Gnostic heresies in the second and third centuries where they tried to make up these gospels about her. They tried to say that she had a relationship with our law, these kind of blasphemous ideas about her, whether it's in the Reformation in the 16th century where they tried to dismantle the traditional view of who she is, whether it's in the 19th century with historical critical scholarship saying, you know what, we can't trust the gospels. These are just hodgepodge collections of different editors. We don't really know who Mary Magdalene is. In the 20th century, you had feminist scholarship. A lot of feminist scholars really didn't like the traditional understanding of Mary Magdalene. And in the 21st century, you have people like Dan Brown with, again, all these kind of crazy ideas about her. And so it seems to me, when we look at the history of the church, what we see is this story of this beautiful saint, much like these other beautiful parts of our faith being continually attacked. And what I think that suggests is that there's something important here. And so what we wanna do in this talk is ask, who is the real Mary Magdalene? What can she teach us? And how can we reclaim her and retrieve her? And what can she show us about the beauty of the faith? The way that I got interested in this subject was, it began on a trip to the Holy land in the summer of 2019. And I was at the church of the Holy Sepulchre. So for those of you who've been there, you know, it's the magnificent church and you have Calvary up to one side on the hilltop. And then down below, you have the tomb of our Lord, the Holy Sepulcher itself. And I was actually sitting on the ground at the base of one of the many sort of columns that are in that church, just a few feet away from the tomb. And I pulled open my Bible and began reflecting on John chapter 20. And it's that encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Lord. And I found it tremendously moving, knowing that where I was sitting was probably just feed away from where this had taken place. And it really brought tears to my eyes, just thinking, wow, like I'm so close to where this happened. And so that encounter, that spiritual encounter set me on a bit of a journey. A friend recommended to me a book called St. Mary Magdalene, Propitess of Eucharistic Love. Some of you may have read it, it's an amazing book by Father Sean Davidson. I got reading that, that led me to other sources that began doing a lot of research. And this past year at the University of Notre Dame where I've been doing my masters, that's been a big side project of mine, sometimes at the expense of my classes, but just trying to do lots of research into who Mary Magdalene is. What I learned quite quickly is that there are, as I've said already, a range of views on who Mary Magdalene is. And I imagine even in this church today, there's probably gonna be different understandings or different impressions. What I learned reading Father Sean Davidson's book is that there is a mainstream traditional view of Mary Magdalene, which was the view for most of the church, for most of her history. And this is the view that Mary Magdalene is simply another title for Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. And also that this is the woman who at the end of chapter seven of Luke's gospel comes and anoints the feet of Jesus with perfume and with her tears and she uses her hair as a towel. And so again, this to me was news in a big way because I, you know, going to mass as a kid, sometimes hearing these different gospels of different women coming and anointing the feet of Jesus, not really knowing who they were. It seemed to each gospel you read the details were slightly different, kind of keep track of is this a Mary, is it somebody else? But doing the reading that I did, learning that actually ever since the time of Tertullian in the second century, followed by people like Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great, and then all through the medieval era, whether it's Aquinas or Anselm, Francis the sales, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna, Thomas Moore, John Fisher, John Henry Newman, Blessed Anne, Catherine Emmerich, you know, the whole swath of the Western Catholic tradition really held to this view that there's more to Mary Magdalene than meets the eye. That Mary Magdalene, Magdalene is a title which we'll talk about applied to the name Mary who is that sister of Martha and Lazarus, and she's a saint with a past. She's a saint with a history. She's a sinner turned saint. So again, some of you may be familiar with that already. Some of you may not, but what I'm going to try and do is persuade you of the truth of that position, that the way that Mary Magdalene was celebrated in the church's liturgy for over a thousand years, the way that all these great saints understood her can still be defended today. And it still I think makes the most sense of the Gospels as we approach them. What I'm going to do in this talk, given the time constraints, is give a kind of rough summary of the arguments. I recently published an article that goes into a lot more detail on some of this. It's with a journal out of the University of Notre Dame called The Church Life Journal. And there I really try to unpack in detail some of the arguments for the traditional view. We won't be able to go into all of them here, but I'll give a sort of rough summary and then if questions come up, please feel free to raise them in the Q and A. Okay, so step number one, we're going to try and figure out why the tradition holds this particular view of Mary Magdalene. So again, there's three women which the tradition says is really one woman. So we have Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany as she's often called. That title doesn't appear in scripture. In scripture she's just called Mary. She's the sister of Martha and Lazarus. So Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and then that unnamed sinful woman in Luke chapter seven. These are the three. We're going to argue that they're one and the same woman. And I think if we can prove that, then Mary Magdalene becomes a much greater saint as a result. So to do that, what we're going to do first of all is show the connection between Mary of Bethany and the unnamed sinful woman. So there's a kind of double movement here that step one is, okay, Mary of Bethany is that unnamed sinful woman. Once we've established that, we can then show that this is Mary Magdalene. So this will require, this is the Applied Biblical Studies Conference. So we're going to put on our thinking caps and really try to get to the heart of the scriptures. And so if this gets a little technical, please forgive me, but I'll try to explain it as best I can. When you look at the gospels, what you see is that there's two different anointing episodes as we might call them. So this scene of a woman coming and anointing the feet of Jesus. The first of these occurs in Luke chapter seven. It's at the very end of Luke chapter seven. And the second occurs in John chapter 12. And Matthew and Mark have a similar account to John. They're describing the same event as John. So for our purposes, there's these two anointing scenes and we're going to look at Luke chapter seven, John chapter 12. And what we're going to see is that it must be the same woman in both of these anointings. So if you look at Luke chapter seven, what you have is Jesus. He's in Galilee in the north of Israel and he's at the house of a guy called Simon the Pharisee and he's there with his disciples and they're at dinner and everything's going great until suddenly they're rudely interrupted. A woman comes in and not just any woman but St. Luke describes her as a woman of the city who was a sinner. And this woman comes in and much to everyone's shock and horror, she gets down on her hands and knees and she unravels her hair which was considered very scandalous in first century Jewish society. And she begins to touch the feet of the male rabbi, big no no. And so everyone's slightly horrified. She's brought perfume to anoint the feet but she can't help herself but tears begin streaming down her face and she didn't bring a towel so she uses her own hair as the towel. And now Simon the Pharisee who's the host of this dinner party he begins thinking to himself, look here if this guy really was a prophet if he really knew what he was doing he would know who this woman is because we've all heard of her. She's a terrible reputation. She's a woman of the city but he clearly doesn't know what's going on. Turns out he does know what's going on and Jesus sensing this he shares that parable of the debtors and he says, Simon if you had a master who had two servants and one owed him 500 denari and one owed him 50 denari and if he gave them both their debts which one would love him more? And Simon at least has the good sense to say the one who was forgiven the greater debt and Jesus says, yep, you got it right and he tells the woman that because she has been because she's loved much she has been forgiven and he gives her those very gentle parting words your faith has saved you, go in peace. So that's our first anointing scene that appears in scripture. The woman isn't actually named in the account. I've already mentioned it takes place in Galilee in the north of Israel. It's interesting that she certainly comes as a penitent there's tears involved and you also sense the shock and the scandal of the crowd. Let's turn into our second anointing account because what we're gonna see at the second account is similarities but also some key differences. So if you turn to John chapter 12 what we find there is that Jesus is again at a dinner party. This time it's not up north in Galilee it's down south in Bethany. So for those of you who've been to the Holy land you'll know it's very much a country of two halves. You have the north which is very lush, very green and then you have in the south the arid desert and the south is where Jerusalem is and Bethany is just a couple of miles from Jerusalem. So the second anointing takes place in a different location whereas the first anointing the Luke one takes place at the very beginning of Jesus' ministry. This one this John's anointing takes place just a few weeks before his death. So again different location different timing. The attitude of the woman is also very different whereas that first woman was described as a woman of the city, a sinner who comes with tears streaming down her face and provokes this indignation on the part of the crowd. In John's anointing it's very different. John explicitly tells us that the woman who does the anointing is Mary of Bethany. It's Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus. And Mary is obviously a respectable friend of Jesus and her getting down on her hands and knees to anoint the feet of Jesus it doesn't provoke scandal or shock or horror. Judas is upset because he wishes he could have sold the perfume and taken the money for himself but there's not the same kind of sense of scandal. So we have these two episodes the unnamed woman early in Jesus' ministry in Galilee and then Mary later in Jesus' ministry at Bethany. What are we to make of this? There's a number of problems in approaching these biblical texts apart from anything else we have to kind of wrestle with the sort of bizarre fact that you have two apparently different women coming and performing this really strange deed. Again, it's hard for us to appreciate just how absolutely outrageous it would have been for a woman to do this. Again, letting down your hair in public was considered very scandalous to be touching the body of a male rabbi who wasn't your spouse would have been unacceptable. And so it's kind of beggars belief that two different women could have thought to dramatically interrupt a dinner party and do this and anoint Jesus in this way. This is why in the Western tradition there's always been the understanding that the best way to understand these two anointings is that this is the same woman behind them both. So there's one writer that describes it this way says there's two anointings indeed but one heart conceived them both. And this solution which people like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas believed in what it allows us to do is it allows us to keep the similarities of the two accounts but also the differences in perfect balance. Because what we now have is it's the same woman Mary of Bethany who's carrying out both anointings but at two very different stages of her relationship with Christ. That first anointing in Luke chapter seven describes Mary coming to the Lord after several years being away from the faith. So the traditional understanding is that Mary of Bethany grows up in this devout Jewish home. She grows up with her siblings Martha and Lazarus. She grows up in the faith of Israel but at some point in her adolescence she becomes disenchanted with the faith of her childhood. She leaves that faith. She travels north to Galilee. Galilee was the place where lots of Romans would go for vacation spots. Again, it's this kind of beautiful part of the country that there's lots of worldliness up there. She's drawn and tempted up there. She goes up there and she gets involved in a life of sin, even to the point of gaining a reputation for herself. She was a known sinner, a known woman of the city. But at some point or other during her time there she encounters this mysterious rabbi. She encounters Jesus. And what Luke captures in chapter seven of his gospel is Mary coming back to him in tears, coming back in repentance. And this is this decisive moment in her spiritual life after which her life will be changed forever. Fast forward a couple of years. Mary's had this reversion. She's become a close follower of Christ. She's become a great friend of Christ. And now in John's account she senses that the Lord's time on this earth is drawing to a close. And so the way we understand this second anointing is that Mary decides to once again get down on her hands and knees and repeats that beautiful gesture which marks the beginning of her walk with Christ. You know, if you don't accept the traditional view it's really hard to understand how Mary could do what she does in John chapter 12. How could a respectable, well-known woman of Bethany be doing this scandalous thing? The way we make sense of it is that everybody there knows that what Mary is doing is she's repeating that deed from a few years earlier up in Galilee. There's this silent reenactment of that beautiful gesture of anointing the feet of Christ. So again, there's an inherent plausibility to this traditional reading based on the fact that it's very hard to argue that two separate women would have done something like this. But if you're still not convinced there's actually explicit textual support in John's Gospel. If you look at John chapter 11 verse two when we're introduced to the figure of Mary of Bethany we're given an important detail. We're told it was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair whose brother Lazarus was ill. Now, what's the problem with this? Well, John in chapter 11 is telling us it was Mary who anointed past tense in Greek it's the heiress tense is referring to a past action. It was Mary who anointed the feet of the Lord. That's John chapter 11. But John's own anointing account isn't gonna come until John chapter 12. And so in chapter 11, John clearly is saying that Mary is someone who on a previous occasion anointed the feet of Jesus. In other words, he's referring back to that event described in Luke's Gospel. And so even many skeptical scholars looking at this verse in John chapter 11 will say actually, yeah, this is a real problem. This is a real problem for those who reject the traditional view. It really seems like John is clarifying for us that this Mary is the one woman behind both anointings. So I hope that makes some sense. And I think it will make more sense as we go along and we try to kind of unpack more of the story of this Mary's life. But what we know for now is that this Mary figure, this sister of Martha and Lazarus, she's a person with a history. She's a person with a questionable past like many of the saints. She's had this experience of sin and vice and spiritual darkness, but upon encountering Christ, she returns home to him. So that's the first part of our argument. What I'm gonna try and show now very briefly is some of the reasons for thinking that that Mary is in fact, Mary Magdalene. So again, it's on the face of it, I think hearing the traditional view laid out like this can feel a little overwhelming. Could there really be three women who are one and the same? But I think when you break down what we see in the gospels and when you approach these texts prayerfully, you begin to realize why all of these great saints in the Western tradition have all held to this view that this is the most intelligible way to make sense of Mary Magdalene. Okay, so we have this woman. She had a past of sin. She's come back to Christ. She's the sister of Martha and Lazarus. What are the reasons for thinking she might be Mary Magdalene? When my written work, I've given eight different reasons drawn from the gospels for thinking that this is in fact Mary Magdalene. You'll be relieved to know I'm not gonna go through all eight. But what I will do is go to a couple of the most, what I find the most convincing arguments. And so we're dipping a lot here into John's gospel. And again, if we go to that anointing account in John's gospel, in chapter 12 of John's gospel, we see something very telling. And again, I imagine we're all familiar with this verse, but it's important to unpack its full significance. So when Mary of Bethany gets down and anoints the feet of Jesus, again, we have that reaction from Judas. He's very upset. He wanted the money in the piggy bank so that he could take a trip to Galilee or whatever. And he expresses his indignation. And it's in defending Mary from those accusations that Jesus says this in verse seven. He says, let her alone, let her keep it, the perfume, the remainder of the perfume, the purenard, let her keep it for the day of my burial. Why is that significant? Well, it's significant because Mary of Bethany isn't at the burial. Who's at the burial? It's Mary Magdalene. And so this is why, again, in the tradition, it's long been understood that Jesus' words there are revealing the fact that these two Marys are one and the same. When Mary Magdalene in John chapter 20 rises as early as she can on Easter Sunday morning to travel to the tomb, to be reunited with the body of her savior, she knows what the reader knows, which is that her task, her God-given task of anointing that body is not yet complete. And so John in his gospel, and there's many other ways he does this, which I talk about again in my article, but John in his gospel, he draws this really direct connection between Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene. And he's really telling us through this verse and elsewhere that this is the same woman. It's not explicit, but it's subtly implicit for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. There's plenty of other reasons, again, for thinking the two women are one and the same. For example, just the fact that the two women, the two Marys never appear in the same scene together in scripture. So it's kind of a glaring fact that in all of the gospels you never have a scene where it says, oh, Mary of Bethany is here, and so is Mary Magdalene. They never appear in the same scene. Why could that be? Well, maybe because they're one and the same woman. The traditional view also helps us explain why Mary of Bethany isn't at the crucifixion and she's not at the burial. I mean, again, Mary of Bethany, remember, she's the one who sat at the feet of Jesus contemplating the one thing necessary. And we had to believe, Frank Sheed would talk about this, that we had to believe that she wouldn't travel the two miles from Bethany to Jerusalem to be there at Calvary. That could be the case, but it seems more reasonable to say, no, she was at Calvary. She is Mary Magdalene. So the understanding I've outlined here, again, this traditional understanding which was held in the church for over 1500 years, held by so many of our great saints, is that these three women are in fact, one and the same. So that unnamed sinful woman from Luke seven is Mary of Bethany, and Mary Magdalene is simply another title for that Mary. And if this traditional narrative is true, as I believe it is, then what we find is that we can draw together the gospel texts to build this amazing picture of Mary Magdalene's life. And this is why she as a saint has come to mean so much to me. It's why I named my car after her, is that she is just this saint with an amazing, amazing story to tell. So just briefly, looking at the gospel texts, if you go through them, as I've done, we know that Mary Magdalene grew up in a devout Jewish family with her siblings, Martha and Lazarus. We knew that at some point, she must have fallen away from her childhood faith. We knew that she traveled north to Galilee, specifically to a town called Magdalene, which is situated on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. And Magdalene was known for being this very corrupt place. And it's where she would later be given this title, Mary Magdalene, which is a little bit like being called, if you were called Mary Lasvagan today, it's like the title pretty clearly implies a bad reputation. But for Mary Magdalene, for our dear friend, it's not, after her conversion, implying a bad reputation, it becomes this kind of banner of triumph, showing her triumph over sin and death. So she travels north to Magdalene. She becomes embroiled in this life of sin, but at some point she encounters the preaching of Christ. She comes and anoints his feet with her tears and with perfume. And then we're told in Luke's gospel in chapter eight that she then becomes one of the supporters of his ministry. She actually helps to finance the ministry of Jesus and his disciples, which again kind of makes sense, because if she, during her wayward years, had made a bit of money for herself, engaging in these kind of immoral activities, she then puts that money to good use. It then becomes to be used for building up the kingdom. After becoming one of the patrons of his ministry, she then introduces him at some point to her family back south in Bethany. And Jesus we know from the gospels would repeatedly go to Bethany. We know that the family of Bethany was some of his closest friends. Again, the traditional view makes so much sense of this because it's very hard to understand how Jesus became such close friends with them unless it was because he'd met their wayward sister up north in Galilee. He knows the family all the way south in Bethany because of Mary Magdalene, who then at some point takes him and introduces him to her home. We know that Mary Magdalene liked to sit at the feet of Jesus. Listening to his teachings. We know that she was the one that moved our Lord to raise her brother from the dead. We know that shortly before his death, she again anoints his feet a second time. We know that she stood with him at the crucifixion. We know that she was there at the moment of the burial. And we know that she was the one that traveled to the tomb on Easter Sunday morning and became the first witness to the resurrection. So Mary Magdalene thus understood the way that all of these great saints understood her, many of the great mystics of the church, the doctors of the church, the way they understood her. She becomes this dynamic, awesome, awesome saint, this true biblical heroine. And she's someone who, she's a true, in the words of one author, she's the prodigal daughter. She's the prodigal daughter who came home to the father. And she gives I think a lot of hope, a lot of inspiration to sinners like me. So as I went along this journey of researching Mary Magdalene, trying to get to the bottom of what we know about her, I came across all these arguments that I've just given you, tried to kind of work through them. And there were different points where I kind of faltered in my research, where I became unsure of myself before it eventually really coming to the conviction that the tradition got it right. But one thing that I struggled with for quite a long time, some of you may have this same question in your minds is okay, look, Clem, all of that sounds great. This is a lovely story. It would be really nice if it was true, but if it's true, why do the gospels never say this explicitly? Like why isn't there a verse? Come on, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You could have just made it a bit easy for us and said, oh, by the way, Mary Magdalene is the sister of Martha and Lazarus. It's a great question. It's a question that I wrestled with for some time. But I think the answer comes in having a true understanding of the way the gospels work, the way the gospels are written. There's one author who's made the point that evangelists are not journalists. If you think of that scene of the raising of Lazarus in John chapter 11, if you're a modern journalist, you'd probably want to know how old Lazarus was, what his background was, his family history, what he was dying of and all these things. But for an evangelist, it's very different. You simply say he was loved by Jesus and he was dying. And so again, the way the evangelists write is often not in the way that we would today. It's often not spilling everything out in excessive detail, making everything explicit in a kind of very logical textbook fashion. Often the way the gospels are written is in a way that has many treasures hidden beneath the surface. Often there's layers of meaning in the gospels that are specifically designed to reward the most attentive of readers. You can think of a direct analogy here with that idea of the beloved disciple in the fourth gospel. It's the kind of central literary riddle of John's gospel. Who is the beloved disciple? Why does he never name himself? And obviously in the tradition, there's the understanding that this is John the evangelist. But again, you could ask why is it not explicit? Is he just playing games with us? Well, no, he's not playing games. He's giving us this invitation to contemplation. And we see the same thing, I believe, with the figure of Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is a veiled figure in the gospels. The family of Bethany is a veiled figure in the gospels. When you go beneath the surface, you realize there's lots of things that are sort of portrayed in a hidden manner. Why do Matthew and Mark never even talk about Mary, Martha, and Lazarus? Why is it only in John that we hear about the raising of Lazarus? I mean, this is Jesus' most important, most decisive miracle. But there seems to be this veil of mystery over this family and over the figure of Mary Magdalene. St. Augustine in his confessions, he described sacred scripture this way. He says that while all can read it with ease, it also has a deeper meaning in which its great secrets are locked away. And I find that a really helpful way to understand the Bible. That while a child can interact with these stories and be inspired by them, at the same time a scholar like Dr. Hahn can spend a lifetime trying to get to the bottom of just one aspect of scripture and still not plummet's depths. That's the genre that we're dealing with with the gospels. And I think that allows us to make some sense of why things, again, are not always laid out explicitly, but they're there hidden in plain view for those who look for them. And again, in Q&A, if we like, I can go into some more detail on some of the reasons for thinking Mary Magdalene is described in the way that she is. Okay, so we've seen very briefly some of the reasons for thinking that the ancient understanding of Mary Magdalene might in fact be correct. And as we've said, it's a understanding that's backed up by the testimony of many of history's greatest saints. It's backed up by the artistic expression of Christendom for over a thousand years. If you look at the great paintings of people like Titian, the great paintings of many of the artists in the Western tradition, they're always depicting Mary Magdalene as somehow connected to the anointing of the feet of our Lord. So they make this convergence. It's been understood in the liturgy of the church for over a thousand years prior to the 20th century. The gospel reading for Mary Magdalene's feast day was Luke chapter seven. So literally for over a thousand years, Christians in the West, they would go to Mass on Mary Magdalene's feast day and the gospel was about that anonymous sinful woman anointing the feet of Jesus. Why? Because they understood that this is the same person. In recent times in biblical scholarship, this traditional understanding of Mary Magdalene has very much come under fire, as I mentioned at the beginning. Historical critical scholarship, or as I like to call it, hysterical cynical scholarship, has often tried to dismantle the traditional understanding of Mary Magdalene. And so in the 20th century and the 19th century, you had people like Rudolph Fultmann, this famous German scholar, who would come to the gospels and just begin hacking away at them. And when they looked at those anointing episodes, they would just dismiss them and say, look, we know that these gospels are just, these are ahistorical, they're full of geographical errors, chronological errors, historical errors. St. Luke really doesn't know what he's doing. There was at most one anointing account, probably the one described in John. Luke's just making things up as he goes along. We really can't trust any of this. I believe that that is wrong, not just because I believe in the inerrancy of scripture, but also on hard, exegetical grounds. I believe that when you really delve into this issue and do the serious scholarship, as I've tried to do these last few years, what you discover is the inherent reasonableness of the traditional devotion, that Mary Magdalene is this dynamic, vibrant saint. She's a saint with a history. She's a saint who was a sinner, but comes to Christ and loves him so much more as a result. As this is the reason why in the medieval era, Mary Magdalene was just beloved by the medieval's. Her tomb or her alleged tomb in Southern France as a tradition that she traveled to Southern France, her tomb became known as the third tomb of Christendom. So second only to the tomb of Saint Peter in Rome and the tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem. She was number three. I mean, this was just, there was a massive outpouring of love and devotion to Mary Magdalene. Why is that? Well, it's because they had this understanding of who she is. And I believe it's a huge tragedy that in the modern era, so many even believing Catholics have not heard of the traditional view of who she is. And even if you're not fully sold on it as I am, it's important to at least be aware of it and to know that people like Augustine and Aquinas were firmly convinced by it. It's interesting to do a kind of comparing contrast of the modern view of Mary Magdalene and the traditional view because what people believe today is they say she's got nothing to do with Mary Bethany. She's certainly not that sinful woman in Luke chapter seven. She's just Mary Magdalene. What they're forced to do is they turn her into this basically background figure in the gospels. I mean, if you reject the traditional view, and many people don't know this because they've not actually interacted with the gospels, but if you reject the traditional view, Mary Magdalene becomes a figure who we know almost nothing about. There's a verse about her supporting Jesus as ministry. There's a verse that she had seven demons cast out from her and then we're told that she was at the crucifixion and then we're told she was the first witness to the resurrection, which is obviously a big deal, first witness to the resurrection, but the problem is that that understanding can't explain why she's the first witness. Like why is it that this woman who we've heard nothing about is all of a sudden placed at the foot of the cross with Mary and John and then she's the first one that Jesus appears to. It doesn't make any sense. The traditional view by contrast can say, oh yeah, she's the first one Jesus appears to because she's one of his closest friends. She's the first one that he appeared to because she walked with Christ for all these years because she and her siblings, Martha and Lazarus, invited him into their home time and again he raised their brother and she had this radical conversion experience at his hands and so she is the one that he chooses to appear to. Again, if the traditional view can be vindicated, what we see when we go through the relevant texts is we see that this is a saint who in Luke chapter seven we're told is the one who loved much. She's the one who had seven demons cast out. She's the one who sat in contemplation, grasping the one thing necessary. She's the one who moved the God man to tears. She's the one we're told did a beautiful thing for him at the second anointing. She's the one whose deed would be proclaimed throughout the world and she's the one who saw the risen Lord and believed. In fact, if the traditional view is correct, then we know more about Mary Magdalene than almost any other woman in the New Testament, probably second only to our lady and she is, as I've said, one of Jesus's most cherished friends. So I hope I've succeeded in at least conveying to you why I believe this is all worth researching and studying and thinking and praying about because the stakes are sort of high. Either you have this very warded down, impoverished view of Mary Magdalene, which a lot of historical critical scholarship will take, a lot of feminist scholarship will take and a lot of the church today has sort of, I think, walked backwards into or you stand by the traditional understanding which animated Christendom for over a thousand years and which makes her shine forth as this amazing saint, this amazing friend of God. What I wanna do in my remaining time is just touch on a couple of ways in which I think Mary Magdalene, as traditionally understood, really becomes for us a model of holiness. She's someone who I think has so much to teach us in the church and world of today. The first thing that I would say is that Mary Magdalene really shines forth as an apostle of hope. Hope, I think, really defines Mary Magdalene's spiritual journey. There's this understanding in the tradition that she, during her wayward years in Galilee, lived the life of a prostitute. And it's never explicitly mentioned in scripture, but if you look at that anointing account in Luke 7, it's been understood that the way she's described as a woman of the city, what that means, and given the reaction of the crowd that they're so horrified that she would be touching Jesus is this understanding that she lived the life of prostitution. What that means, I think, is that she becomes this saint who in so many ways rejected the trappings of shame and the empty promises of the evil one. In religious art, over the centuries, she's often been depicted holding a skull. Why is that? Because she's a saint who knew what it means to die to oneself. She's a saint who knew what it is to feel shame, especially that shame that often comes with sexual sin. She knew what that means, and yet she had a hope which allowed her to overcome that shame. Shame didn't keep her away from coming to Christ, but instead she broke into that dinner party. She didn't mind about the reaction of the crowd. She didn't mind about the humiliation and the embarrassment. She was so desperate to get to him, to fall at his feet and to find that light and that consolation which he brings. There's a line in St. Thomas Aquinas's Sumer, which I came across recently that I really just stood out to me as very beautiful, where he says, the more grievous the sin, the more particularly did Christ come to blot it out. The more grievous the sin, the more particularly did Christ come to blot it out. And that to me is very, very consoling when I look at my own life, when I look at my own heart, how dark it can be at times, how wayward, how filled with vice and pride and all these things. But the more grievous that sin, the more particularly did Christ come to blot it out. And Mary Magdalene being that saint, possessed by seven demons, the totality of vice represented in her life. How much more so did Christ come to blot that out of his beloved daughter? And the second thing I would leave you with is this. I think Mary Magdalene understood within the tradition, she teaches us what it means to sit at the feet of the master. And if you go through these texts in the gospels where she appears, what you see is that in almost every scene, she's falling at the feet of Christ. We know that she comes and crouches at his feet on that first occasion of that first anointing, that despite the ire of the crowd, she allows the tears to flow and she drops to his feet. We know that she sat at his feet while listening to him teach when Martha's busy around the house. We know that she falls at his feet in heartfelt pleading after the death of her brother Lazarus. We know that she again comes and anoints his feet, getting down on her hands and knees shortly before his death on the occasion of that second anointing. We know that she stands there at his feet at Calvary. We know from Matthew's gospel, it's almost a throwaway line, but she's sitting there when he's placed in the tomb. And we know, of course, that at the moment of the resurrection, when she first sees him and believes, she falls to his feet and clings to him and cries. So in so many ways, I really believe that in our culture today, this culture that's in so many ways becomes so pagan, so worldly, this culture of this acute cynicism, about life, about the big questions, about where we're headed, about God, this culture of perpetual noise. I believe that in this world of ours, Mary Magdalene shows what it means to sit there at the feet of the Lord in quiet contemplation. So I'm looking at the clock and I know how to bring this to a close. And there's a lot more that could be said about Mary Magdalene. But I guess would leave you with this thought that the theme for our conference this week, this idea of the transforming power of God's holiness. I personally have found Mary Magdalene to be such an inspiration, such a friend, because she is someone who was transformed by God's holiness. And she gives so much hope to me that that can happen in my life as well. If I'm willing to befriend Christ and to follow him the way that she did. And so bearing in her heart the wounds of love, this radiant heroine, this fierce advocate of sinners, reveals I believe in a really unique way, the depth and the beauty of a life walked with Christ. So let's pray together in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Holy Magdalene, you came with tears to the spring of mercy Christ. From him your burning thirst was abundantly refreshed and by him your bitter sorrow was consoled. Recall now in loving kindness what you used to be and seek for me that same tender mercy that you received. Ask urgently that I may have a trust which pierces the heart, tears that are humble and a desire for the homeland of heaven. Your many sins were forgiven, dear friend of God because you loved much. Grant me a share in that same love that in my sin I might find forgiveness, in my impurity hope and in my suffering joy. Oh, good Jesus through the intercession of your beloved Mary despise not the prayers of one who has sinned against you but strengthen instead the efforts of a weakling who loves you that I may one day see you face to face, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you very much. So I think we have about 30 minutes for Q and A. We do not have to take all 30 minutes but if people have questions I'd be very happy to field those whether it's about some of the arguments I talked through some of the things I couldn't get through or if it's just about the spiritual reflection of what she means for us. I think there's gonna be a microphone moving around so I think this lady here towards the front had a question. I wondered at the resurrection scene when Mary Magdalene approached Jesus and she wanted to touch him but he said, do not touch me I have not yet ascended to the Father I never understood what that meant. What that means? Why he, yes, why was he not in position to or she couldn't embrace him? Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, so I don't know if people heard that so that scene of Mary Magdalene encountering the risen Christ and she wants everything in her wants to cling to him and him telling her, do not touch me. There's actually a tradition in Provence at the shrine of Mary Magdalene in southern France where they claim with a relics of Mary Magdalene and on the skull of Mary Magdalene at this shrine in southern France there's a small piece of skin attached to the skull and the ancient tradition is that that is the part of Mary Magdalene's head that our Lord touched when he said to her, do not touch me and that that's been preserved there. The question of what that verse means I do think it's mysterious but my understanding is in the tradition the way it's been understood is that Jesus is really pointing Mary Magdalene and pointing us to the fact that he now has to ascend to the Father which is what he says to her that this understanding that there's a new phase coming in his resurrected body he's now returning to the Father and that he can no longer be grasped in this state but actually now Mary Magdalene is being invited into this deeper spiritual encounter with him into that encounter of contemplation. So that's how I understood it, yes. I wondered if you had used or read or accounted for the account of Mary Magdalene in Maria Val-Torta's writing. Sorry, I didn't catch that, could you repeat that? Have you used or accounted for any of the work of Maria Val-Torta about Mary Magdalene? I've not come across that, no. The Palm of the Man God? No, I'm not familiar with that but I would love to talk to you afterwards to learn more any time I come across a book on Mary Magdalene I'm very curious to read it. A question here. Could you just wait for the microphone? Thank you. St. Mary Magdalene, her feast day is St. Mary Magdalene Virgin so how does she have the title of Virgin with her history of adultery? The question of how, what does she signify as a virgin, did I get that right? What's the history of adultery? And then her feast day is St. Mary Magdalene Virgin. Okay, yeah, I'm actually not familiar with her being identified as a virgin. So that is something I would have to look into. That's not my understanding based on the traditional account described as a virgin. Yeah, and what that could be is it could be saying that she became a virgin in the spiritual sense following her conversion. So that could be, certainly the tradition would be that following her conversion she lived a life of celibacy and chastity. So that would be my best guess but I would need to look into that more. Question over there. Psychedically super makes sense. Do you, have you found any more like historical criticism that would supplement like the exegetical arguments that they are all three accounts for the same woman or is it more so like exegetical versus historical criticism that's the argument? Yeah, Sue, sorry, was the question, have I come across arguments against the traditional view that are not strictly historical critical? Was that the question? Jess, I see, okay. That's an interesting question. Yeah, I would say it's primarily scriptural but again, we have to understand that the scriptures are historical documents and so even non-believing scholars can look at these texts as historical documents and try to figure out what they mean. But I think also that to the previous question about the shrine in Southern France that is maybe a historical record of showing like a very, very ancient devotion to this particular understanding of Mary Magdalene. So that's maybe a sort of a suggestion that she is what the traditional view holds. I would also just say finally that as I began with, sometimes in the faith, you can figure out the importance of something based on how much it's attacked. And I think the way that you see Mary Magdalene attacked very early on in the church's history, people riding these made-up gospels and attributing them to her, there does seem to be this understanding and these would be historical documents as well. There's this understanding very early on that she's extremely important. And again, I think the traditional view is better positioned to explain why she's so important and why she was so attacked. Thank you for the beautiful reflections in your talk this afternoon. I just thought I would share a few things that I learned from a pilgrimage that I took. Back there's almost exactly one year ago, last July, I was on a pilgrimage group led by Stephen Benz. And it was on the way of Mary Magdalene. And so we spent quite a bit of our time in Southern France. And we came to learn that Martha and Lazarus also set sail with their sister Mary to Marseille. And eventually Lazarus became the bishop of Marseille, supposedly eventually martyred. And then Martha actually settled in a nearby city called Oral. And she became quite an evangelist up in that area. It's kind of interesting with her being known to be a little bit more outgoing than her sister Mary that she would have this zeal for being an evangelist. Thank you for sharing that, that's very beautiful. Other, I think one over there and then there's somebody over here. Much of this is new to me today. So forgive my ignorance here, but given the importance of names and people's names and their origins, their locations, once she was forgiven in the first washing of Jesus' feet, why would the name Magdala then come back again at the end of the tale? Like why wouldn't that have been shed along with her sinfulness? That's an excellent question. Yeah, there's definitely debate in the scholarship on the exact meaning of Magdalene. So I outlined the more mainstream view that Magdalene is associated with the city of Magdala. So again, Mary Lasvagan, Mary Magdalene. There's another view by a minority of scholars that it's actually coming. Magdalene comes from this root Aramaic word, meaning tower S. And so it is possible that the word Magdalene means exalted one or tower S and that it's actually a title that Jesus gave to her the same way that he gave titles to Simon Peter, for example, or to the Sons of Thunder. So that's the first thing I would say is, you don't have to be wedded to a particular understanding of what Magdalene means. And so you could be the defender of the traditional view could be open to either interpretation. However, sticking with the idea that Magdalene comes from the city of Magdala, I think there's a couple of reasons for why that might have stuck. One is a practical reason, which is that again, if Mary was known to be a political target, if she was known to be in danger, then it's quite possible that the gospel writers refer to her as Mary Magdalene to draw attention away from the fact that she was from the family of Bethany. So there could be this practical consideration there, but it was a certain kind of secrecy for her protection. So that's why they were like, wow, this is convenient to keep using this title to sort of avoid the authorities tracing her back to Bethany. That's one possible reason. I would also offer a theological reason, which is I just think this is the way Christianity works. I mean, Christianity takes the things of paganism, it takes the things of the world, and often it doesn't destroy them, but it baptizes them. And so I think Mary Magdalene is really this amazing title because it shows that this thing which symbolized her vice, her sinfulness has actually become this kind of banner showing how Christ has conquered the evil one in her life. So that's just a couple of thoughts on that. I think there's a gentleman over here in the middle. Any speculation about John chapter eight where the woman was caught in adultery and that perhaps she in Luke eight, I guess it was, that she might have gone back to thank him and that's when she used her hair in the tears. Yeah, so the question is about that episode in John eight of the Women Caught in Adultery and Jesus famously writes in the ground and then he says whoever's about sin cast the first stone. So there is I think a fairly widespread conception that that is Mary Magdalene. I would say a couple of things. Firstly, that episode in John eight is definitely a little mysterious. It's not totally clear whether originally was in John's gospel. There are ancient manuscripts where it appears in Luke's gospel. And again, we can believe in the inerrancy of scripture but still be unsure like exactly was that, did John sort of write his initial gospel and then add that in or was this from somebody else? It's not totally clear. There is some confusion there about that episode. So that's kind of the first thing I would say but as the question of whether it's Mary Magdalene I personally do not believe that. I think that's a much later tradition in Mel Gibson's The Passion. That is his interpretation. So his Mary Magdalene has a flashback to the crowd getting ready to throw the stones. I personally have not seen any kind of argument to show that that would be a connection but I'd be open to hearing them. For me like the argument I've outlined is giving more of the mainstream traditional approach. And I think it is important to have the devotion but also for it to be grounded in hard arguments. Like do we actually have evidence for this being the case? I've not seen that with the woman from John eight. So I sort of would go for the simpler explanation that that's a different woman. But again, I would love to kind of look into that more. Any more questions? Question over here at the front. Oh sorry, over there as well. Maybe go there first at the back. Have you seen The Chosen? If so, how would you comment on how they portray Mary Magdalene in the show? Sorry, I have seen The Chosen. Was the question about how they portray her? Correct. Yeah. Yeah, so for those of you who've seen The Chosen, they do not take the traditional view. So in The Chosen, she is a different woman from Mary of Bethany, much to my disappointment. But interestingly in The Chosen's depiction, for those of you who've seen it, I hope it's not too much of a spoiler for those who haven't, but their figure of Mary Magdalene does seem to have lived a life of prostitution. Is that right? If I'm remembering that right? So I don't know if they're aware of this, but they're giving a little bit of a hodgepodge there from the traditions. Because again, if you just took the verses in scripture that use the phrase Mary Magdalene, then there's no indication that she was a prostitute. We know that she had seven demons cast out from her, but that could mean anything, right? That doesn't mean she was a prostitute. So the idea that she was a prostitute actually comes from the traditional view, which is saying that she's that woman in Luke seven who's subscribed as a woman of the city who was a sinner. So I would actually, if I was speaking to the director of The Chosen, I would actually raise that and say, I don't think that really works super well with the biblical text. Interestingly, they also in The Chosen, they depict Mary Magdalene having a relapse. I think that's right, that there's a one point where she's come to Christ and then she falls away and it's a beautiful scene where it's actually our lady who brings her back to Christ and they do it really well. But even that idea of her having a relapse, I think is drawing on the tradition. So if you look at the visions of Blessed Ann, Catherine Emmerich, she had some very extensive visions about Mary Magdalene, which she said were from God and she is a blessed and she very much embraced the traditional view, but one of the things she shares in her vision is that Mary Magdalene had this kind of relapse, which again, I think makes her this quite profound saints of ongoing conversion. So yeah, I ultimately, I wish The Chosen had done it differently, but I would say even in their view, they are drawing on some of the tradition, whether they know it or not. Any question over here? Maybe, yeah. You were addressing the historical critical deconstruction of the tradition of Mary Magdalene in the West, but doesn't the Eastern Orthodox kind of come closer to the deconstructed tradition versus the combining the three women that Pope St. Gregory the Great did? Yeah. And how do you account for the deviation there? Yeah, thank you. That's an excellent question. So the question is, I was saying that historical critical scholarship tries to dismantle the traditional view by separating the three women. My friend over here was pointing out in the Eastern Orthodox church, they often also separate the three women and they're not coming from this historical critical perspective. This is a big subject, but I would say a couple of things. Firstly, I think the way the Orthodox tradition approaches this is very different from historical critical scholarship. So historical critical scholarship, yes, it will separate the three women, but it also goes a lot further than that in kind of doing damage to the biblical text. So as I was saying earlier, they'll look at these different anointing episodes and say, look, this is ridiculous. There couldn't have been two separate occasions where this happened. Probably Luke is just making things up. It probably happened once and that's the account we have in John. So they're willing to just sort of dismiss the evangelists as being unreliable. That's not what you would see in the Orthodox tradition. In terms of what the Orthodox tradition says, it's true that it represents a strand of Christianity, a minority strand that rejects the Western understanding of Mary Magdalene. And that's an acceptable view to hold. So everything I presented here tonight, you don't have to agree with it. You don't have to accept it. What I would say is when you go and look at the Eastern Fathers, what you find actually is that they'll often, they often won't identify all three women as one, but often they'll represent two of the three as being the same. And it actually gets very confusing, but when you do a kind of detailed study, you have people like Origen, who's the most prominent of the Eastern Fathers. He'll actually identify Mary Magdalene as being that woman from Luke seven, but he believes Mary Bethany is separate. And then you'll get other Fathers who say, look, Mary Bethany is the woman from Luke seven, but Mary Magdalene is separate. Again, there's no simple way to kind of investigate this. Mary Magdalene is a saint who requires, you have to approach her with both head and heart. But I think it's noteworthy that even in the East, you have this sense that there's more going on here than meets the eye. And that's why so many of them will say, yeah, actually there do seem to be connections. And then I would simply say beyond that, it's when you actually get into the nitty gritty of the arguments that I think the Western tradition far excels that of the East. And so I'm respectful towards the Eastern tradition, but I think the Western makes much more sense of the biblical data. Any final questions? All right, the front here, the microphone. Did you ever feel Mary Magdalene being by your side or showing like the spiritual part of her being with you or doing this process that you were doing this? And how did this transform your daily life? Yeah, wow, thank you. Did everyone catch that yet? What Mary Magdalene has meant to me in my own spiritual life. All right, it's funny you say this because two days ago on Tuesday, I was actually filming a course on Mary Magdalene with the St. Paul Center. And I was running late, which is pretty normal for me. And I had just showered and gotten ready and gotten all dressed up. And I was having a problem turning off the shower because I'm staying in this apartment I haven't been in before. And I was twisting this knob left, right, up, down. I couldn't, every time I touched it, it seemed like more water was coming out. And I was looking at the clock and I was like, okay, I'm gonna be incredibly late. And then actually I said, okay, right, say Mary Magdalene, I'm doing this video course for you, please turn off this stupid shower. And then actually like two seconds later, I got it to stop. So that's, but on a more deeper level, the Mary Magdalene has, yeah, very much, I'm not someone who is good at devotions to saints is the honest truth. And I wish I was better, but she is one of the few saints who has really, really spoken to me. I don't know why exactly, but I mean, I can wager a guess, but I think I'm someone for whom the faith has always been this kind of mixture of head and heart. And I think going into the kind of intellectual journey of who is she, all these arguments, the evidence, what makes the most sense. I think that kind of sparked my interest, but then seeing that kind of perfected by bringing that to the level of the heart. And one thing among many that she has really taught me is again, that idea of hope and the idea that she is a saint who knows what it is to feel shame. There's, I think something very beautiful in the John's account of the raising of Lazarus in John chapter 11. In that text, Jesus hears that Lazarus is ill. And the text tells us that because Jesus loved the family, because he loved Martha and Mary, he decided to stay where he was two more days. And they're like, wait a second, what is going on? Because he loved them, he doesn't come. It's interesting, right? What's going on there? And then when he eventually arrives, you can imagine for Mary and for Martha that she's experienced Lazarus, literally like breathe his last breath in her arms. And I, when I read that text, often will reflect on the fact that if she is the saint who had this past, if she's someone who had fell away from the face, she's someone who'd gone north to Galilee, lived her life as a prostitute, I would imagine that she was tempted to think, Jesus didn't come to save my brother because I wasn't worthy. Jesus didn't come to save my brother because of my past mistakes, my past failings. You know, Jesus didn't come because of something wrong with me. And I think what that text reveals is this wound that we all have. And the reason she speaks to me is because I see this in my own life. This wound that because of the fall, we're so tempted to view God as a kind of cruel father, not even a father, a cruel master, an addictive master. We're so tempted in our spiritual lives when things go wrong and when we experience suffering to say, yeah, no God, I deserve this or he's punishing me or he doesn't care or I'm not worthy, I'm not clean. And actually when you read on in John 11, you know, what does Martha do? Martha being the active one. Martha goes straight up to him. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And what does Jesus say in response? He basically gives a little homily. It's like, you don't believe in the resurrection of the dead. You know, I am the resurrection of the life. But then when Mary comes, she comes later again, I think perhaps because she has that sense of trepidation. She says the exact same thing, except she falls at his feet, but she says the exact same thing. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And I think Jesus is moved very differently by Mary. And it's not a slight on Martha. My older sister's called Martha, but I think he's touched by Mary in a special way as she falls at his feet. She said the exact same thing as her sister, but his reaction is very different. And what does he do? He weeps. Jesus wept. And that line, I think is the shortest line in scripture and one of the most powerful. He weeps because he sees the heart of his daughter so filled with his fear and the sense of shame, this sense of doubt and confusion. And that confusion that we often feel in our lives towards the Father, I think Jesus is the answer to that. And Mary Magdalene shows that. So I'm looking at the clock and I think we'll end it there, but that's what I would say about, some of the things that she's come to mean to me. So thank you all so much for coming. I'm very, very grateful.