Look at the reredos above the high altar in our church and see Mary Magdalen, with her long flowing hair, clinging to the feet of the crucified Christ. Is this the real Mary Magdalen though?

This is certainly the Mary Magdalen of tradition – at least in the Western Church. It is also the Mary Magdalen of the rock musical “Jesus Christ Superstar”, in which he famously sings “I don’t know how to love him”.  But is this the real Saint Mary Magdalen of the Gospels?

Saint Luke in his gospel says that “seven demons had gone out of her...” but “seven demons” was another name for epilepsy.

Saint Luke also tells us about an un-named woman who had a “bad name” in the town. She was obviously a prostitute who, in a shocking and scandalous way, anointed the feet of Jesus with her tears and wiped them with her hair during a meal at the house of Simon the Pharisee.

All the biblical scholars tell us that they are two quite different women.  Tradition has somehow turned them into one person, and has identified both of them – the epileptic and the prostitute as Mary Magdalen.  The biblical scholars can go in insisting but there is little hope that their scholarship will change tradition!

Pope Gregory the Great had even added to the confusion by insisting that the woman caught in adultery in Saint John’s Gospel is also Mary Magdalen!  The Eastern Church has kept these three women apart but the Western tradition says they are one and the same person!

Anyway, does tradition have to be literally true in order to be meaningful? Mary Magdalen’s abiding image as the “redeemed whore” proclaims the power of God to change our lives.  She was transformed from prostitution to purity, from sin to holiness: her sordid past is healed, her shame is taken away.  It is this same power of God that can redeem, transform and change our lives too.

Mary Magdalen, prostitute or not, is the first Gospel witness of the resurrection.  It is Mary who announces the Risen Christ to the apostles; she is the “Apostle to the Apostles”.

That is why her feast, all down the ages, has been kept with special joy and solemnity.  Come!  Celebrate her feast this week on Thursday 22nd July.