Mary Magdalene is one of the more important saints found in the New Testament of the Bible. She is the only disciple of Jesus whose name appears at least 12 times in all the four gospels. Normally the Church assigns the day of one’s earthly departure to one’s heavenly abode as the feast day to be commemorated for a saint. Though little is known about the approximate date of Mary Magdalene’s death, her feast is celebrated on July 22, all over the world. She is honoured because of being a close disciple of Jesus. She accompanied Jesus during his public ministry, whose main agenda on earth was to establish God’s kingdom and reveal the way God loves us.
The gospel of Luke narrates, “After that, Jesus travelled about from one town and village to another. The 12 were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out — and many others.” Her name comes to fore at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion but more prominently at his resurrection, being the first one to report it. Mary had received great favours from Jesus. She was supposedly weighed down by some evil spirit, which hindered her normal life until she came in contact with Jesus.
Once she was restored to her original self through her encounter with him, she began thanking and praising God for his great mercy through this holy and compassionate person called Jesus. I believe that when we sincerely desire to come in contact with God and with our own inner self, be it through the words of Prophet Muhammad, or in the person of Jesus or the teachings of Buddha or Guru Nanak, or the different gods and goddesses that we discover in our holy books, we are restored to the beauty of our original self.
Like Mary we are then compelled to follow closely the one who restores us to our unique personhood, for, as the Bible says, “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” And that following of our creator or ishta deva (preferred deity) then prevents us from remaining only passive blind followers but makes us active agents of that divine power which has only the well-being of the whole creation on his/her mind. No wonder then in the history of the Church and of all other religions, there have been many Mary Magdalenes, inspiring us too, to be transformed by divine touch and become carriers of God’s boundless goodness to us.
