The Feast of Mary Magdalene: An Anglican Perspective

Feast Day: July 22

The Anglican calendar is ordered by a hierarchy of holy days, each carrying a different weight of observance. At the top sit the seven Principal Feasts, the highest days of the liturgical year. Below them are the Red-Letter Holy Days, appointed in the BCP 2019 with their own collects, propers, and lectionary readings, listed on page 688. They are called Red-Letter Days because, in the tradition of printing church calendars, these days appear in red ink, distinguished from the Optional Commemorations which appear in ordinary type. The Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, observed on July 22, is one of these Red-Letter Holy Days. The BCP 2019 appoints a collect on page 630 and lectionary readings on page 731 for this feast.

July 22 falls in the Season after Pentecost, in the week of Proper 11. The Sunday nearest to this feast appoints Matthew 13:24–30, the parable of the wheat and the tares, the deferred judgment of the harvest. It is an appropriate context for a feast that honors the one who was among the first to know the harvest had arrived. Mary Magdalene is the resurrection's first witness: the woman who came to the tomb in the dark, who found it empty, who mistook the risen Lord for the gardener, and who heard her name spoken by the one she thought was dead. The long green season of the Church's ordinary formation is interrupted on July 22 by the first Easter proclamation: I have seen the Lord.

The Biblical Portrait

Mary Magdalene appears by name in all four Gospels, always in connection with the crucifixion and resurrection. She is first introduced in Luke 8:2 as one of the women who followed Jesus and supported his ministry: "Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out." (Luke 8:2, ESV) The seven demons are not explained. The healing is stated plainly. This is the whole of what Scripture tells us about Mary's past: she was healed. Whatever the seven demons represented, physical affliction, spiritual oppression, or both, they were cast out, and the woman who had been their captive became a follower of Jesus from that day forward. The collect remembers this plainly: God's Son restored her to health of body and of mind.

All four Gospels name Mary Magdalene among the women who witnessed the crucifixion. While the disciples scattered, the women remained. She is at the cross. She is at the burial. She is the first at the tomb on the morning of the first day of the week. In Mark's account, she and Mary the mother of James and Salome bring spices to anoint the body and find the stone rolled away. In Luke's account, it is the women who report the empty tomb to the eleven, and "these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." (Luke 24:11, ESV) John's account goes further and places Mary alone at the tomb, and it is to her that the risen Lord first appears.

The appointed Gospel is John 20:11–18, the resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene. She is weeping outside the tomb. She looks in and sees two angels where the body had lain, and they ask her why she weeps. She turns and sees Jesus standing there, but does not know that it is Jesus. She supposes him to be the gardener and asks where the body has been taken. And then the moment the whole passage turns on: "Jesus said to her, 'Mary.' She turned and said to him in Aramaic, 'Rabboni!' (which means Teacher)." (John 20:16, ESV) He speaks her name. She recognizes him by her name in his mouth. Everything that follows, the commission, the proclamation, the announcement to the disciples, flows from this single moment of recognition. The risen Lord's first word to any person on Easter morning is a name.

Jesus then commissions her directly: "Go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" (John 20:17, ESV) Mary Magdalene goes and announces to the disciples: "I have seen the Lord." (John 20:18, ESV) These four words are the first Easter proclamation. The first preacher of the resurrection is a woman who had been healed of seven demons, who stood at the cross while others fled, who came to a tomb in the dark with spices, and who recognized the risen Lord when he spoke her name. The ancient tradition's title for her, apostola apostolorum, the apostle to the apostles, is not a stretch. She was sent to the apostles with the news on which the entire apostolic proclamation rests.

The Tradition and the Question of Identity

The Church's tradition about Mary Magdalene has been complicated by a long-standing conflation of three distinct figures in the Gospels. In the medieval Western tradition, Mary Magdalene was identified with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anointed Jesus' feet in John 12, and with the unnamed sinful woman who anointed Jesus in Luke 7. This threefold identification shaped centuries of Western piety and gave Mary Magdalene her popular image as a repentant sinner.

The Eastern Church never accepted this conflation and has always maintained the three women as distinct. Modern scholarship overwhelmingly supports the Eastern reading: there is no textual basis in the Gospels for identifying Mary Magdalene with either the sinful woman of Luke 7 or Mary of Bethany. The BCP 2019 follows the scriptural evidence: Mary Magdalene is the woman from Magdala from whom seven demons were cast out, who followed Jesus, who witnessed the crucifixion and burial, and who was the first witness of the resurrection. That portrait is extraordinary enough without the additions.

The collect captures the scriptural Mary with precision: God's Son restored her to health of body and of mind, the healing from the seven demons, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection, the commission at the empty tomb. The two moments that define her in Scripture are the two moments the collect names. What she was before the healing, the collect does not speculate about. What she became after it, the collect states plainly: a witness of the resurrection, sent to proclaim what she had seen.

The Appointed Readings

The lectionary for the Feast of Mary Magdalene is found on page 731 of the BCP 2019. The appointed Old Testament reading is Judges 4:4–10, which introduces Deborah the prophetess, the judge of Israel who summoned Barak to lead the army against Sisera and went with him when he would not go without her. Deborah's faithfulness in the absence of male leadership, her willingness to be present where others were absent, and her role as the one who announced God's victory, these qualities place her alongside Mary Magdalene as a woman who bore witness and who was present when presence was costly.

Psalm 42:1–7 is the psalm of the soul's longing: "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" (Psalm 42:1–2, ESV) The psalmist writes from a place of desolation, remembered worship, and persistent hope. The soul that pants for God in these verses is the soul that refuses to let go even in the absence of felt presence. Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, weeping, searching, asking where the body has been taken, is this psalm embodied. She pants for the one she has lost. And he is there, speaking her name.

2 Corinthians 5:14–20a is Paul's theology of the new creation and the ministry of reconciliation: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." (2 Corinthians 5:17–18, ESV) Paul's statement that God has given the ministry of reconciliation to his people is the apostolic theology behind Mary Magdalene's commission. She was sent to proclaim not merely a fact, the tomb is empty, but a reality: the God who was in Christ is now reconciling the world to himself, and the disciples need to know. She carries the ministry of reconciliation to the people who will carry it to the world.

The BCP 2019 Collect and Preface

The BCP 2019 appoints the following collect for July 22 on page 630: "Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that, by your grace, we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen." The collect makes the feast explicitly applicable to the congregation by moving from what God did for Mary to what he is asked to do for us. He restored her to health of body and of mind; now grant that we may be healed from all our infirmities. He called her to be a witness of his resurrection; now grant that we may know him in the power of his unending life. The movement is characteristic of Anglican collect structure: the historical action of God in Scripture becomes the ground of present petition. Mary's healing is not only her story. It is the pattern of what God does, and the Church asks that the pattern would be repeated.

The phrase health of body and of mind is notable. The collect does not spiritualize Mary's healing or reduce the seven demons to a metaphor. Whatever afflicted her afflicted both body and mind, and God's restoration was of both. The petition that follows is equally whole-person: healed from all our infirmities, not merely forgiven, not merely comforted, but healed. The feast of the woman who was made whole invites the congregation to bring its own brokenness before the one who made her whole.

The Preface of the Apostles, found on page 155 of the BCP 2019, is appointed for this feast: "Through the great shepherd of your flock, Jesus Christ our Lord; who after his resurrection sent forth his apostles to preach the Gospel and to teach all nations; and promised to be with them always, even to the end of the ages." (BCP 2019, p. 155) The appointment of the Apostles' Preface for Mary Magdalene is theologically significant. The preface names the risen Christ as the one who sent forth his apostles after his resurrection. Mary Magdalene was sent by the risen Christ before the apostles were. She carries the first resurrection proclamation. The Church's appointment of the Apostles' Preface for her feast honors that commission and places her within the apostolic witness that the preface describes.

The Feast in Anglican Worship

White vestments are worn on the Feast of Mary Magdalene, the color of resurrection joy and of the confessor's witness. She is not honored as a martyr, there is no tradition of her martyrdom, but as the one who confessed the risen Christ before the apostles and who bore witness throughout her life to what she had seen at the tomb. White is the fitting color for the feast of the resurrection's first witness.

The feast of Mary Magdalene has been observed in the Western Church since at least the tenth century and was retained in the Anglican calendar at the Reformation. The BCP 2019 gives it full Red-Letter status, with collect, preface, and appointed lectionary. The reading of John 20:11–18 at the feast provides a natural occasion for the proclamation of the resurrection in the middle of the long green Season after Pentecost, an interruption of ordinary time by the extraordinary news that gave ordinary time its meaning.

The feast falls in the week of Proper 11, when the lectionary appoints the parable of the wheat and the tares in Year A, the deferred harvest, the patience of the farmer who lets both grow until the end. Mary Magdalene's feast in this week is the announcement that the harvest, though deferred for the world, has already begun in the resurrection. The one who rises on Easter morning is the firstfruits. The empty tomb Mary found is the sign that the harvest of the new creation has started, even as the tares and wheat still grow together in the world. In this way, Mary Magdalene's feast becomes a foretaste of the harvest already begun in Christ's resurrection, even while the field of the world still contains both wheat and tares.

Observing the Feast

The Feast of Mary Magdalene falls on July 22 and always lands in the Season after Pentecost. The collect is on page 630 of the BCP 2019 and the lectionary readings are on page 731. White vestments are worn.

To observe the feast: pray the collect and receive its movement from Mary's particular healing to the congregation's universal need, healed from all our infirmities, knowing God in the power of his unending life. Read John 20:11–18 and sit with the moment Jesus speaks her name: Mary. He speaks her name. She recognizes him. That is the whole of the resurrection encounter in one exchange. Read Psalm 42 and hear the soul that pants for God in desolation and refuses to let go. Read 2 Corinthians 5:17–18 and receive the ministry of reconciliation that Mary carried to the apostles and that the apostles carried to the world.

Let the feast interrupt the ordinary season with the extraordinary news: I have seen the Lord. Those four words, spoken first by the woman from Magdala who had been healed and had followed and had stayed at the cross and had come early to the tomb, those four words are the ground of everything the Church has said and done and been since the first Easter morning. July 22 is the day the Church remembers who first said them and gives thanks.

Conclusion

Mary Magdalene is the Church's annual reminder that the resurrection was not first proclaimed from a pulpit or by an apostle or after careful theological reflection. It was first proclaimed by a weeping woman, to the men who had not yet believed. She was healed, she followed, she stayed, and she was sent. And she said what only she could say, having seen what she had seen: I have seen the Lord. Not I believe it happened. Not the tomb appears to be empty. I have seen the Lord. The collect asks that what God did for her, restoration to health of body and of mind, knowledge of the power of his unending life, would be done for the Church that honors her feast. The feast of July 22 is not a historical commemoration. It is a petition: Lord, do again what you did for her. And in doing it, make us too the kind of people who can say those four words and mean them.

"Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that, by your grace, we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life." (BCP 2019, p. 630)