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Sheila Price Duggan's avatar

I am so grateful that I found this Substack. After walking the Camino de Santiago de Compestela last year, and seeing Mary’s rock star status in Catholic Churches in Spain and France, I wanted to learn why she wasn’t honored similarly in the American Catholic community. Loving the lessons…

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Sheila, welcome to the Magdalene underground.

You saw her crowned in Europe and came home to find her ghosted. That whiplash is real. In France she’s a saint with her own legends and basilicas. In the U.S.? She’s still fighting to be more than a footnote with eyeliner.

But you’re asking the right question. That alone makes you dangerous in the best way.

Keep walking. You’re not alone on this pilgrimage.

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Nancy's avatar

I'm wondering if she's the Queen that the Spanish named in the full name of the city I'm in: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciúncula), where Porciúncula is in reference to the li'l chapel of St. Francis back in Italy. :)

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Nancy, that Queen in the city’s name is Mary the Mother, not Mary the Tower.

But your instinct to look for Magdalene in the margins is exactly how she’s been found for centuries. She hides in place names, side chapels, and half-burned legends. And sometimes, the other Marys keep the door cracked for her.

You might not find her in the city’s title… but I’d still check the oldest church in town. She has a way of showing up where no one thought to look.

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Morgan Guyton's avatar

My friend Grace did this at the wild goose festival. She anointed and gave a kiss on the forehead and offered a stick of honey to eat.

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Morgan. That’s it. That’s the liturgy I’d actually get in line for.

No wafers. No wine. Just honey on the tongue, oil on the brow, and the kiss of someone who hasn’t forgotten how sacred it is to be soft.

Tell Grace she’s rewriting Eucharist with her bare hands.

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Morgan Guyton's avatar

She knows. She’s the guru. I am the initiate.

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Suzanne's avatar

Beautiful.

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Andrea Peterson Straus's avatar

Do this, in remembrance of her.

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Wendy Parker's avatar

Amazing that women are still unable to hold the priesthood in the LDS church. They practice anointing with oil frequently, it's a reverence reserved for the menfolk. So much left out for the sake of control. It's sad. I feel like the Tank Girl of Bible study, "It could have been so beautiful..."

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Wendy, I want that on a T-shirt: Tank Girl of Bible Study. That’s the exact vibe Magdalene had when she walked into the room, cracked the jar, and anointed a man who still thought he could dodge his own death.

And yeah — it could have been so beautiful. It was beautiful, for about five minutes, until the men started editing. They kept the story but clipped the power. Gave the oil to the boys. Called it tradition. Called it order. Called it holy.

But the memory still leaks through. Every time a woman reaches for the oil again, or uncovers a buried line in the gospel, something divine starts twitching awake.

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Kelly Thompson TNWWY's avatar

That’s why she’s still alive in us.

Because they couldn’t kill what didn’t need their blessing.

Or their recognition.

Their false authority.

They erased her from theology.

But not from the body.

Not from the heart.

Not from the knowing.

She IS the anointing. Embodied. They should pray she recognizes THEM.

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Kelly, this is it. This is the liturgy they tried to bury.

They wrote her out of the books but couldn’t touch the bloodstream. Couldn’t silence the body that remembers. She is the anointing — not the vessel, the verb. Not waiting for permission, not asking for a title. Just showing up with oil and a mirror.

They should pray she recognizes them?

Exactly.

And maybe she will.

But I wouldn't count on her being gentle about it.

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Nancy's avatar

Even Mary's patience can wear thin? ;-D

I wouldn't blame her a bit. ;)

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Janee Jarrell's avatar

Once upon a time, I held ordination as a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Becoming aware that what "the woman" had done for Jesus would be told about her wasn't being told, every time I presided at Eucharist, before the words of the so called "verba," I would insert, "and a few days after the woman had anointed him." So the people were reminded of her actions.

If we can wrestle "the verba" out from the so called patriarchy, we have a chance of something deeper.

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Janee, that’s holy rebellion at the altar, and I’m here for it.

You didn’t just remember her. You restored her.

Every time you inserted those words before the verba, you cracked the seal on a buried scroll.

You said it clearly: she anointed first. Not the bishops. Not the books. Her.

It’s wild how much fear one line about a woman with a jar still provokes.

Because if we say it out loud, consistently and ritually, it reshapes everything.

It unhooks authority from apostolic boy-lines.

It reminds the Eucharist that it was her touch that prepared the body.

It re-grounds holy memory in unsanctioned hands.

Thank you for smuggling her back in through liturgy.

One whispered restoration at a time, we rebuild what empire erased.

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Janee Jarrell's avatar

My only sadness is that I've not been able to convince anyone to pick up the tradition.

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Sara Ewing-Merrill's avatar

I love this so very much and it aligns so beautifully with what I have been pondering this week; sitting with the four anointing stories and their meaning.

We know they are connected with the Magdalene even when it's not explicitly stated. I believe she was Mary of Bethany, but I also believe that she was the woman in Matthew and Mark.

It's actually in both Matthew AND Mark that the text says “what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” and yet....she is not even named in the telling of those stories.

I ask myself, was the author of Luke trying to diminish the Magdalene by telling that story with a sinful woman as the anointer? Luke is also the only Gospel that names her as the one "from whom the seven demons had gone out." Or was there another time and place when a woman who anointed Jesus' feet and the stories got conflated?

When you start unpacking and questioning the stories we've been handed, the patriarchy comes tumbling down.

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Yes, yes, yes—this is the work.

We remember her not just in name, but in pattern.

She anointed truth. And the Church dismembered her story.

Matthew and Mark honor her act but erase her name.

Luke names her—but with a footnote of shame.

John gets closest. But still splits her into parts.

And we wonder why the Magdalene returns like wildfire in our time.

It’s not just remembrance.

It’s repair.

It’s re-membering the Body she already anointed.

And yes—when we pull that one red thread,

the whole damn patriarchal tapestry begins to unravel.

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VedicSoul's avatar

Your flowing dedication is in every word.

May all remember her. And begin there....

🙏🙏

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

And may they remember not with sanitized halos—

but with salt, scent, and scandal.

She wasn’t trying to be remembered.

She was trying to be true.

We begin there. Every time.

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Sharon Castillo's avatar

Heartwarming and beautiful honoring of Mary Magdalene💖

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You know, Cannot Name It's avatar

спасибо. так ценно ваше послание и вовремя.

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Michele Cambardella's avatar

thank you for this reverent, Spirit-filled reflection. It's stunning. It's true.

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Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

Michele, thank you.

Some truths don’t arrive with thunder. They slip in like oil across the forehead—quiet, certain, irrevocable.

I’m grateful it landed. Spirit recognizes Spirit.

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Michele Cambardella's avatar

Very grateful to have found your work.

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A HEART FOR JUSTICE's avatar

♥️🙏 beautiful. She absolutely amazes me every time. She was an incredible see-er. She was a prophet. A truth teller. A tower. An apostle. She wasn’t looking for approval or recognition. All she knew was she loved Jesus and her heart could only follow him anywhere. Even to death. And beyond. I cannot help but marvel at her. I’ve had few women to model myself after. I cannot help staring at her and studying her quiet gentle movements realizing how insightful, knowing, strong and courageous she was. Like many women I am certain her kindness was mistaken for weakness. But anyone who thought that could not have been more wrong. 🙏♥️

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Lizzie 🇨🇦's avatar

Thank you for so beautifully offering this. It will be my meditation of the day. 🙏🏼💗

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