Friday of the
Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
(I Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 8:1-3)
A famous painting by the French master Georges de La Tour hangs
in the National Gallery in Washington,
D.C. It shows a loosely-clad woman sitting in
front of a looking glass in meditative stupor.
She is fingering a skull, which sits in front of, and almost blocks from
view, a burning candle. “What’s it all
about?” she seems to ask herself as she contemplates life and death, herself
and Christ, the light.
The painting is called “The Repentant Magdalene,” but this
may be a misnomer. That title reflects a
popular but unfounded belief that Mary Magdalene was a reformed
prostitute. Preachers through the ages
have concluded that Mary Magdalene, mentioned for the first time in Luke’s
gospel today, is “the sinful woman” who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears of
yesterday’s gospel passage. But today’s
gospel only identifies her as the woman “from whom seven demons had gone
out.” Demon possession in the New
Testament is associated with sickness and hysteria, not moral depravity. Mary Magdalene’s relation to the woman of the
previous chapter is likely one of inclusion;
that is, the evangelist Luke includes the story of the women accompanying Jesus
following that of “the sinful woman” to indicate how Jesus attracted different
kinds of women as well as men to himself.
But certainly the questions that La Tour’s Magdalene seems
to ask are likewise inclusive of all humanity as well. What’s the point of it all? Is our destiny just dry bones that will whither
completely in time? Or is Jesus the fire
who enlightens our minds today and will empower our resurrection from the dead
tomorrow? We Christians know the answers
to these questions. Our tasks are to
live the implications of these answers and to share them with the world.
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