Dear Ladyhawke, your comment is interesting since you use the phrase "equal to the 11" - I KNOW that I have seen St. Mary Magdalene listed on our calendars as a saint "equal to the apostles." Yet when Eastern thinking folk say that, we don't read anything controversial into it.
St. Mary Magdalene did, after all, have a special witness to the events of Our Lord's time on earth, and of the evidence of His Ressurrection. But when we look at her, we don't see "priest." We don't see anything like "priest." We don't see the authority of "priesthood" conferred.
St. Mary Magdalene is a wonderful saint, a magnificent woman from history, and filmmakers really don't need to attribute imaginary events to include her. I always thought that the women whom Jesus befriended and the event involving them and His Mother tell us a lot about how He viewed the spirituality of women. Jesus seems to listen to the prayers of women in a particular way: He raises Lazarus when He sees the sorrow of his friends Mary and Martha, He performs His first miracle because His Mother urges Him to, etc. When the Apostles are off hiding, it is St. Veronika who comes to wipe His face and weep for Him.
I've always been befuddled why some Roman Catholics - I guess the sort who really took Vatican II and ran the wrong (and unintended) way with it - go looking for exapnded roles for women. Really, women have some of the finest roles in Scripture. And present some of the finest examples of compassion.
I was disturbed by an article I saw in my local newspaper going on about Mary Magdalene as if she were some sort of feminist icon and making all sorts of silly speculation about her. What I know of her from Scripture is enough to see she was a woman to admire and a powerful saint. Why make up stories?
Just my opinion - glad you pointed out about the film. I haven't seen it. Wonder if I can find it locally?
Originally posted by Ladyhawke1017:
Glenn and I saw the Gospel of John....
Over all it was okay(I found out I don't know the Gospel of St. John as well as I thought though)but I had a problem with the way the film portrayed St. Mary Magadalen and her involvement in the Last Supper and the Agony in the Garden. From the way the scene played out, it seems to imply that Our Lord washed her feet as well as the feet of the 12 and it also seemed to imply that she was sitting at the table with them all during the institution of the Eucharist. The scene in the Garden seemed to center on St. Mary more than on the other apostles present and in one scene Our Lord is shown placing both His Hands on the heads of each Apostle, and Mary as well. Not sure how others would view that, but coming from a Western background, to me the imposition of hands means that He conferred some type of authority...I took the scene to mean that St. Mary was an equal to the 11.
To others this might not add up to anything serious, but considering the controversy going on in the West with people pushing for the ordination of women, I took St. Mary Magdelan's participation in both scenes as being a political statement.
Vie
