DOMINICAN VOCATIONS
PROVINCE OF THE ASSUMPTION
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DOMINICAN VOCATIONS PROVINCE OF THE ASSUMPTION |
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Saints, Blesseds and Servants of God |
St
Mary Magdalene |
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In
the whole Christian tradition, the figure of Mary Magdalene is
associated with that extraordinary mission entrusted to her on the
morning of the Resurrection. This is why everything one says
about
Mary Magdalene needs to be prefaced by the very same terms used in
the Gospel to recall her commissioning. "Jesus said to
her, 'Do
not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my
brethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father;
and to my God and your God'. Mary Magdalene came and told the
disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had spoken these
things unto her" (Jn 20:17-18). Mary Magdalene appears in all of the Gospel accounts of the events surrounding the Ressurection. Because Mary reported the good news of the Ressurection to the disciples, she became known among some early Christian writers as apostola apostolorum - the Apostle of the Apostles. According to Mark's and Luke's Gospels, the two women, in going to anoint Christ's body, became witnesses of his Ressurection. In the middle of the thirteenth century a sound witness to the hagiography of Mary Magdalene explains how devotion to her relics came about in two separate locations. In 1264 in his famous Golden Legend or Tomes, Blessed James of Voragine (Varazze near Genoa) recounts in great detail how it all happened: “After the Lord's Ascension, fourteen years after the Passion.. St Peter entrusted Mary Magdalene to St Maximin, one of the seventy two disciples of the Lord. And so Maximin, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Martha and Cedon, the man born blind whom Jesus healed together with other Christians, were cast off into the sea by infidels, without anyone to pilot the boat. Through divine grace they arrived at Marseilles, where they were not at first made welcome, but they eventually managed to convert some inhabitants of Provence. This thirteenth century Dominican insists greatly on the fact that it was Mary Magdalene who preached with her disciples. Prior to the end of the thirteenth century, there does not seem to have been any particular devotion to Mary Magdalene on the part of St Dominic and the early friars. If we read the earliest accounts, one does not find any mention of Mary Magdalene. It is the Virgin Mary who is the great protectress of the Order. And yet a tenuous link can be established. In the thirteenth century there was a great effort to convert women of ill repute, to use the expression current at the time, that is to say, prostitutes, victims of poverty. When such conversions were made with deep conviction, bishops had the idea of grouping them together into communities of penitents, who, quite naturally, took St Mary Magdalene as their patron. This was the case in France, Italy and Germany. It was in Germany that they were given the Constitutions of the Dominican Nuns' monastery of St Sixtus at Rome, which had been reorganised by St Dominic, and these communities were for a number of years incorporated into the Dominican Order. This was in 1286, at the same time as Charles II was thinking about his foundation at Saint-Maximin. For it was he, indeed, who turned the Dominican Order towards devotion to Mary Magdalene (even if, as has been seen, Dominican hagiographers took an interest in her before the end of the thirteenth century). It was in 1297 that the feast of Mary Magdalene was celebrated with solemnity not only at Saint-Maximin but throughout the Order, as the General Chapter of Bologna had recommended. So it is in this way that Mary Magdalene became a patroness of the Order alongside the Virgin Mary. The rules for portraying Mary Magdalene gradually became fixed. There is a sermon attributed to St Thomas Aquinas which explains this. Even if it is not authentic, it is surprisingly beautiful. The text which is commented on for the feast of St Mary Magdalene is that of the rainbow, the symbol of the convenant renewed between God and his people as they emerged from Noah's ark. What is a rainbow? It is the meeting of the sun with clouds that are full of water. And so it is in the meeting between the Risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene: he is the rising sun comes to meet the tears of the woman weeping: here we have fire and water. And as in the phenomenon of the rainbow, here too, colours are created. For Mary Magdalene they are blue and red. Dark blue (coeruleus) is the colour of humility, the blue water of compunction; whereas red is traditionally the colour of faith. Indeed, we see this in painting: the Magdalene is always dressed in a red mantle with a tunic that is often blue. This is the case with the paintings of Fra Angelico: Mary Magdalene is in contrast with the Virgin Mary, almost always dressed in a mauve coloured mantle and with Martha, who is dressed in green, as for example, at the foot of the cross. It
would seem that the Dominicans' recourse to Mary Magdalene is
particularly in evidence
at times of reform or renewal, calls to fervour and conversion. An excellent Dominican historian wrote in 1995, on the occasion of the seven hundredth anniversary of Saint-Maximin: "It does not really matter if the Dominican legend does not stand up to trial by the fire of historical criticism. If it perpetuates errors that historical events give the lie to, it yet conceals a truth that is grasped by the history of mentalities: it translates a spiritual experience into poetic language: that Magdalene is 'daughter, sister and protective mother to the Order of Preachers'. We have by no means finished with this legend when we recognise it as apocryphal." So, why Mary Magdalene? Certainly one may say: it is because Dominicans want to be apostles and they draw their inspiration from she who was closely and inseparably associated with the history of the Order. Yes, but how? It seems that Mary Magdalene in tradition and in literature where she is a major figure, is constantly and simultaneously endowed with three characteristics: she is the converted sinner, she is the contemplative soul and she is the herald of the Resurrection. This is a powerfully profound image of the preaching office and hence of Dominican life. How can one speak of the mercy of God if one has not experienced it oneself, whatever the magnitude of one's sins may be? How can one speak of God without speaking with God, to use the phrase so dear to St Dominic. Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere: to contemplate and to transmit to others the fruits of one's contemplation is St Thomas Aquinas' way of defining preaching. And finally how can one not bear witness to the fact that the mystery of suffering, separation and death finds its resolution through faith in the Resurrection of Christ, his victory which gains all people their own? The theology underlying Mary Magdalene is an admirably concentrated fusion of the paschal mystery and the meaning of faith in Christ. Speak,
Mary, declaring
What you saw, wayfaring The tomb of Christ, who is living The glory of Jesus' resurrection Bright angels attesting The shroud and napkin resting Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning Amen. Alleluia. - Victimae Paschalis
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