St. Mary Magdalene

I'm really not going to delve much into all the controversy on this. Dan Brown has done much more to slander this holy woman than anyone who may have or still does believe that she was a prostitute. Here's what we do know. We know that she had a pretty rough life. Anyone who had seven demons in them would. We know that she stayed with the Master until His death on the Cross and that she was there at the new beginning of His Resurrection.

We also know that there's no chance in hell that she and Christ were married or that any of this other gnostic, Pagels/Brown-spawned garbage is true.

Here's the real lesson that Mary Magdalene has for us these days. We have issues with sexual penitence. The fact that Mary had seven demons in her doesn't faze us at all. Oh, but if the notion of her being a prostitute comes up, everybody is outraged. Let's be honest. She wasn't Immaculately Conceived. She deserved perdition just as much as the rest of us for whatever sins she did commit and made it to heaven through the gift of God's grace. Some seem to think that the penitent prostitute is somehow of a lower order of the blessed in heaven than the penitent thief or the penitent liar or whoever. Of course, the opposite is true. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the greater (or something like that). We simply do not like the idea of this sort of sinner repenting, reforming their lives, and handing themselves over to God. That particular sin is just TOO bad, think some. The idea gives people the willies, so they blast the idea that Mary ever could have been involved with such a naughty thing as prostitution. She never could have done THAT and made it to heaven, right? How wonderful that Christ thinks otherwise.

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.