Thursday, March 22, 2012

Mary Magdalene

John 20

I had a thought about how Mary Magdalene's speeches might fit into the structure of the play. If the speech yesterday is a kind of encouragement to Catherine, and invocation to be strong and assurance that it is good to be strong, then perhaps this is what happens when Catherine has a stumble, when she does not feel brave or strong.

MARY MAGDALENE

Oh, Catherine. So strong in the face of death, you say? So strong in the face of death, I said, I know. But really...it was because I knew, Catherine. Knew that there were far worse things than death. If you had seen me on the day I thought one of them had come for Him after all...

I fled on first finding the tomb empty, and when first Peter then John went inside, I found I could not. I could not. And when they left, I stayed, and I felt myself crumbling, crumbling into seven pieces all over again. Or more now. As if He had never taught me to stand. As if I was never called the Tower.

CATHERINE

He appeared to you, first of everyone.

MARY MAGDALENE

And I didn't know Him. I was so blinded by pain and doubt. I was convinced, at the last, that the world was cruel after all. After all He had done to show me the beauty, all He had done to show me how people could be. I was crumbling into seven pieces and more, and He called my name again.

"Mary!" Just that. "Mary!"

It wasn't a reprimand, although I had earned one. It was the first time I wondered what it was He had said when He banished the seven demons from me, and I knew that it was that. Just that. Just as He said it. He hadn't called them forth from me. He had called me to take control of myself once again. He had called me, reminded me I was stronger than them. That they could have a civil war amongst themselves or all stand united against me between my wrist and my elbow, but I could beat them all away. That I would still control the work of my hands.

"Teacher!" I cried, almost ashamed that I had learned every lesson but the most important. Every lesson but this.

He was kind, and strong, when He spoke again.

"Do not hold on to me, Mary, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

And as before, I remembered that He had not made me whole only for myself. He made me strong, He reminded me I owned my own skin and my own soul, so that I might use it. Reminded me that I controlled the work of my hands and voice that I might work and speak for others. Reminded me of things I never seemed to let myself really know, letting demons have power over me, letting them divide me into parts and tell me what I was made up of.

In His eyes, I was Mary. In a way I can't - everything that was me was in the name, when He said it. And I never forgot it again.

He called you, Catherine. I had to be called twice, and He would have done it a thousand times. But don't, if you can, don't forget. You know who you are, He called you. You know that you own your voice and your pen and the work of your hands. You know why He called you. Get the message right the first time you come running back from the tomb.