This Homily is a discussion on the Gospel of Mary on the Feast of St Mary Magdela, July 2024, for the Orthodox Catholic Church of America (OCCA), St Mary Magdala Parish, Fort Wayne, USA
Summary:
Nothing much has changed for Eve in her evolution, even to the present day.
The Feminine goes under the radar of patriarchy because it isn’t important to patriarchy.
The Feminine is only there to serve, and it is used (and abused) as such by patriarchy. In the same way, culturally, we have the ability to receive Jesus (with any clarity) only in his Feminine. Thus, when Jesus Christ comes, he is admitted into our consciousness through the Feminine. It is the Feminine which can receive, that knows how to receive. The Feminine is ready, it is active, it is ready to be activated, when Jesus comes.
Our battle isn’t with other human beings, it is with powers and principalities (Ephesians 6:12).
Before he departs, Jesus says to us, “Do not lay down any rules beyond what I determined for you, nor give a law like the lawgiver, lest you be confined by it” (Gospel of Mary 4:38). Patriarchy confines. These are the stuck one, these are the ones that Jesus has “come to call” (Matthew 9:13, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31-32, John 17:19), these are the ones who need the help, the protection, the sanctification of the truth, the Word of God (John 17:17).
The question is, since Jesus Christ is, of course, incarnate in the Feminine, and in the Masculine, how do we truly receive Jesus in his Masculine? I offer the opinion that we have hardly even started to know. It’s not yet in our consciousness.
What, then, can we offer, as women, to receiving men in their Masculine, if their Masculine isn’t the Masculine we see in patriarchy? And what can men offer on their part? I pose this question as, “What is the Friendship of Women”, based on a reading from Sister Joan Chittister, from her book, “The Friendship of Women” and thinking of St Mary Magdela, who, in her Gospel, offers the male disciples a kind of mini-Pentecost, following their despair at the departure of their Lord.
Christina Rossetti’s In the Bleak Midwinter says, “what I can, I give him, give my heart.” And Alberto Ríos, in his poem When Giving Is All We Have, says, “…You gave me What you did not have, and I gave you What I had to give—together, we made Something greater from the difference.”
Further info:
Readings from this service: A Reading from the Gospel of Mary 4:33-5:4
(Taussig, Hal. A New New Testament: A Bible for the Twenty-first Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts (p. 224). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.)
A Reading from SISTER JOAN CHITTISTER’S BOOK, THE FRIENDSHIP OF WOMEN
A Reading from the Gospel of Gospel of John 20:11-18
(The Inclusive Bible, The First Egalitarian Translation, Priests for Equality and Wildman, Terry M. First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament. InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition)