Mary Magdalene, patron saint of prosperity

 Here is another icon of Mary Magdalene—by artist Elaine Savoie of Hornby Island in British Columbia. Click on the image.

Of course, you recognize the Red Egg.

We had a delightful visit with Elaine about sixteen months ago. We didn't realize it then, but when she heard the story of the Red Egg, this icon began percolating within her. And now here the icon is.

 

We just received this image—as if posting the story below had called St. Mary all the way down this coast.

Look how regal she is. This is a woman to stand up to a Caesar or two—let alone to you or me.

I don't know who these figures are beneath the Magdalen's regal, starry skirts. Are they recipients of her patronage who have commissioned this icon in their gratitude?

 I do know that on the indigenous northwest coast coppers are signs of economic and social status.

And in economic times like these, all of us—including artists, certainly—would be grateful to have copper wings like these.

Why "Red Egg" anyway?

The first person Christ appeared to after his Resurrection was his friend and follower Mary of Magdala. She couldn't recognize him at first and mistook him for the gardener. But when he called her by name, she turned and said to him, "Rabboni, that is, teacher..."

"Noli me tangere," Jesus said. "Do not cling to me. I must rise to my Father first."

Mary of Magdala is often confused with other women in the gospels. But she is not Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. And she is not the woman caught in adultery.

She appears to have been a woman of means who helped support Jesus and the disciples. She was a myrrh-bearer because she purchased and brought myrrh and spices with which to anoint Christ after his burial. And she is an apostle to the apostles because she was sent by Christ himself to announce his Resurrection to them.

Traditions say that Mary of Magdala spent much of her life in contemplation and prayer after the Ascension. One legend is that she sailed—or drifted in a small boat—to the south of France with Joseph of Arimathea and Salome and "the other Mary" who had gone to the tomb to anoint Christ's body, too.

As the first witness of the Resurrection, she would proclaim, "He is risen!" and would hold an egg as a symbol of that transformation. One day she attended a banquet of the Caesar Tiberius.

"He is risen!" Mary proclaimed.

"He is no more risen than that egg is red," Tiberius scoffed.

Mary stretched out her arm and opened her hand. The egg was red.

Red Egg—the Idea

We believe there's a depth dimension—an inherent goodness and creativity and desire to connect within each of us.

We say it one way in the mantra on the portal to our website. And the tag-line above says it another way...contemplation through art into action. This doesn't mean that the movement is one-directional, but rather that each of these elements—contemplation, creativity, and action on behalf of others—is in a dynamic relationship with the others.

Each of us has integrated one or two of the dimensions more completely than the other(s). We are living, evolving organisms after all—individually and as a whole. And it isn't that each dimension deserves exactly one-third of our attention at any given moment anyway.

But still we believe that our natural movement, as we become more and more free, is towards this dynamic wholeness in which each of these dimensions spontaneously interacts.

That's who we think we are.