Why Mary Magdalene? Jesus and Women: His Revolutionary Role Dame Ysatis De Saint-Simone.

Why Mary Magdalene?

Jesus and Women: His Revolutionary Role

Dame Ysatis De Saint-Simone

Mary Magdalene’s vision of Jesus is unique in its human quality

Her awesome transformation and immense love for Jesus are examples of the redeeming power of Love, and a hope for all those who may have walked away from their true nature. This is why she was chosen to be the Archetype of a lost and of a redeemed humanity.

Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem

Jesus’ actions were indeed

revolutionary in every aspect

that you look at Him –

especially regarding

women. We could call Him the first and

foremost ‘liberator’ of

women.

Jesus at Bethany House with Mary Magdalene, Martha and other women.

This was especially apparent in the Jewish society where women were considered defiled creatures having no souls, and no degree of

spirituality that could be developed in them. As a consequence, they were forbidden to come near anything, or anyone, Holy.

But Jesus chosea woman as

the only human being to see

Him before He ascended to His Father’s Glory, and the one He

willed to appoint as a

Harbinger of the Resurrection.

Mary of Magdala was the first apostle to see Jesus the Christ resurrected.

In many passages of the Jewish liturgy used in the Synagogues, thanksgiving was expressed thusly:

‘Blessed art thou, Lord and God that thou has not made me a woman.’

So Peter demanded an answer from Jesus about why the Magdalene had been given the highest honor of being the Harbinger of His Resurrection, instead of one of them. This question came indeed from his Jewish Orthodox way of seeing things, as Peter was not an Essene as many of the other disciples were.

Thus, Simon Peter protested the presence of the Magdalene amongst them saying:

‘Lord, why is she here? She doesn’t let anyone else speak and

we do not understand why you have made her be the Harbinger of your Resurrection instead of one of us? The Mishna (Jewish scripture) says that women have no soul and if a man talks much with a woman, even if she is his wife, he will go to Genna (Hell).’

Mary Magdalene washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and pours the most expensive perfume on them.

Ysatis De Saint-Simone

Jesus said, ‘Simon, I will soon reveal to you the Spirit of the Living God

which dwells within you.

It will teach you all things as they are above and not as they are in

your understanding.’

‘For now, quiet your mind and know that I have willed it so,

for even when Mary was in darkness she has known how to

love, and even when she was blind, she was athirst for the

true wisdom of God. So, I have led her

to be whole in Spirit, for she is now male and female, equal to

all of you. And in Truth I tell you every woman who is made whole will enter the Kingdom of

Heaven.’

From Gnostic Gospel - Pistis Sophia.

Who Was Mary Magdalene?

Mary Magdalene holding the Grail symbol.

Her name was Mary, which means in Latin both ‘amarum mare’ (‘bitter sea’), and also ‘enlightened Light-giver’. Her life eventually reflected both meanings of that name.

In Bethany, the small town in Jerusalem where Mary’s family owned a home, she was known to her childhood friends as ‘Mary of Bethany.’ In Egypt, where she became known for her youth, beauty and dissolute life of pleasure, she was known as ‘Mary of Egypt.’

In Galilee, people called her ‘Mary of Mijdel’ or ‘Mary of Magdala’ – Magdalum was the name of one of her ancestral properties where her house was. She was also called ‘the sinner’, and ‘the woman possessed by seven demons’ by people of the region, who didn’t know her, but knew about her life of pleasure.

Her name was soiled by scandal, a serious thing in a culture where just by being a woman, you were considered to be ‘defiled and soiled’. To avoid gossip or scandal, the Gospel writers just called her ‘the Samaritan woman’, ‘the sinner’, ‘the adulterer’, ‘the Veronica’, etc., but all along the way, it was Mary of Magdala who was there.

Most people don’t know that.

House of Mary at the Lake in Galilee

It is also little-known that Mary was well-born and enormously rich; she descended of Royal stock. Her father’s name was Cyrus, he was a very rich merchant from Persia (Iran). Her mother’s name was Eucharia. Both were Essenes and disciples of Jesus, and were chosen by the Essene community to go and live in Egypt to prepare the way of the Holy Family during Herod’s persecution.

It is that way that she, her brother and sister became close to Jesus at the beginning of their lives.

Mary and Jesus were childhood friends

Her parents hosted the Holy Family in Egypt on their way back to Jerusalem when Herod died.

She fell in love with Jesus when she first saw Him. . .

‘The day they arrived even the Sun seemed to shine in a special way.’

And as the ways of Love are, He greeted his little friends Martha, John and Mary whom He loved with

a kiss.

‘That was my first kiss… And one that I would never be able to forget!’   

She never forgot. . . Neither could she settle for anyone else or any other form of Love!

‘For now, all I have is a picture in my mind of Jesus looking at me when I last saw Him years ago. I can see every detail so clearly in my mind. I saw Him suddenly turn His head and look at me with an expression, which I can’t well describe. Jesus looked at me and He looked very sad…

It was as if He knew that it was the last time that He was seeing me… what I truly am… I felt that He was saying to me a deeper good-bye than just ‘a good-bye’.’

‘Years passed without me seeing Jesus, so I asked my friend Sulashkma to draw a picture of Him.’

‘The next thing I knew, He was passing by our home with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea.

All the girls wanted to marry Him, but I felt that I had more power than anyone to get Him.

I prepared myself to be the one to seduce Him… I was beside myself.

I didn’t really know what force it was that moved me and allowed me to be so bold, but I was.’

‘I was moved, as if by thisardor inside me.’

And I said, ‘Please take me now… We don’t have to wait… I can’t, and I don’t want You to… Let my love embrace Your heart and take my love! Let me immerse myself in You… I know that You are all there is… Be it Angel… Man… God… Mystery… I need You to be part of me. It’s almost a question of life and death to me! I am dead without You. Please… Just think, if a single kiss can make us feel all this, what we can experience when we become one!’

It was then that Jesus gently pushed my body away and, looking into my eyes as if piercing into my soul, said,

‘Mary, it’s not like this… You understand, but you don’t at the same time… It’s not easy. I love you too, but with a Love which surpasses all understanding. My body wants you as badly as yours wants mine, but my Spirit speaks louder to me of a Love in which you will be one with me forever… But not like this. When the time comes, you will Understand, and truly be one with Me.’

At this, He stood up, held me close in His arms for a moment, and covering me with His robe gave me a kiss on the forehead and left. I thought, ‘the next time I see Him, I will get Him. . .’ There was no next time!

‘The next morning when I looked for Him, my Father told me that He had already left with His uncle Joseph to very distant far-away lands where he was going to be for a long time.

I went blind with Rage! And I expressed it without any control!

I felt possessed by anger; it was as if wrath had dominion over every single cell of my mind and body and spread itself as a hideous oil of nothingness and hate throughout my whole self!’

Blind rage‘I became angry, very

angry . A year passed and I

was still angry. Nothing satisfied me. I feel that this is the

time when the demon of wrath entered me.

I had such anger; no one could have believe me if I had expressed it.’

The nothingness and the hate followed me, saying:

“Nothing can separate us now. I have gotten you. Now, you belong to me; you and I are one and can do many things together… like get Him… you know who. . . ”

I liked that idea, although I hated the

Nothingness. . .

‘People don’t think that a child that is only thirteen years old can experience such wrath, but I could have blown up the whole world with it!

No one had told me that He was going to leave. Now He was gone. I felt abandoned and betrayed.

I could hear this voice inside myself saying, “What good can life offer to me now?”’

‘But there was another voice saying,

“There’s a lot of good things out there Mary. Go and experience them. You’ll see.”’

‘I decided to listen to thatvoice in order to quench mywrath.

It was more than I could hold inside, so I decided to do something about it.

It was like having a volcano in eruption inside me

which wanted to hurt everyone: my father, my brother, Jesus, my sister, everyone whom I blamed for this turn of events, even myself.

Yes, I wanted to hurt everyone. But most of all, I wanted to hurt Jesus. So, I decided to become a courtesan at the age of thirteen.’

‘Renowned for my youth and

beauty, I became very well known and sought

after by,of course, the very wealthy.’

‘I demanded Unreasonable amounts of gold, jewels, land, and whatever I wanted for my favors.

And I always chose who I wanted to have to calm my unquenchable wrath, which people saw as ‘thirst for pleasure’. So, they rightfully called me “the sinner”.

My friends knew me as ‘Mary Egypt’.’

Me and my cats

‘My orgies and the entertainment I sponsored were famous in Egypt. I became a Master in the Tantric Art of Love.’

‘I thought I was getting everything I wanted out of life, until one day I heard that He was back in Jerusalem. So, without even thinking twice, I took my cats and left Egypt. I needed to see Him…’

‘The first day I saw Him, I new that I had never forgotten Him,

and could never forget Him.

“This time”, I said to myself, “I know what

to do to get a man. . . And God

knows that I am going to get Him.”’

But How Little Do We Know the Ways of Love!

‘The first day I saw Jesus, He turned me around without me even knowing it!

And I became Mary of Magdala, a true disciple of Love!’

And Jesus said to me, ‘If you only knew what I’m offering and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would be the one asking, and I would give Living Water. For I would make a fountain spring out of your entrails, and whomever drinks of this Water will never thirst again!’

John chapter 4, vs 15 to 24

What is it that happened that day?

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?