Beloved Witness at the Dawn,
I know what it is to stand at a grave before the sun is up.
Not always a real one. Sometimes it was the kitchen at four in the morning. Sometimes it was the parking lot outside the hospital. Sometimes it was a door I could not walk back through. But I have stood there, beloved, the way you stood there, with nothing in my hands but the small useful things grief makes us carry. A casserole. A list of phone calls. A jar of spices for someone who no longer needed them.
You went anyway. That is what I love most about you. When the others scattered, you stayed at the cross. When it was over, you watched where they laid him. And on the third morning, while it was still dark, you got up and went back. Not because you expected a miracle. Because love does not stop showing up just because it is grieving.
You were crying so hard you did not recognize him. You thought he was the gardener. And then he said one word: your name. Mary. And you knew.
I have needed that, beloved. Someone to say my name in the voice that knows who I really am. Not the version people decided I was. Not the story told about me by people who were not there.
Because they did that to you, too. For fourteen hundred years, sermons and paintings called you something the Gospels never say you were. You became a warning, when you had been a witness. And you waited, quietly, for the record to be set straight.
I come to you as a visitor, beloved, not as one raised in your churches. But I come with a jar in my hands and tears I have stopped apologizing for. Say my name. I am ready to be known.
I
Her Storythe one who stayed
Mary Magdalene was a Jewish woman from Magdala, a busy fishing town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Her name simply means Mary of Magdala. In 2009, archaeologists digging at Magdala uncovered a first-century synagogue, so we can now stand, almost, in the streets she walked.
The Gospel of Luke introduces her among the women who traveled with Jesus through the towns of Galilee, together with Joanna, Susanna and many others, who provided for them out of their own resources. Luke adds that seven demons had gone out of her. The text does not explain what that meant to its first readers, and it does not call her a sinner.
Then come the days in Jerusalem. Matthew, Mark and John name her among the women at the crucifixion, and Luke places the women from Galilee there too. When most of the men who followed Jesus had fled, she stayed and watched. Matthew and Mark say she saw where he was buried. Mark says that when the Sabbath was over, she and other women bought spices so they could go and anoint his body.
In every one of the Gospels she is at the empty tomb. In John's telling, she comes alone, early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, and finds the stone rolled away. She runs to tell the others, then comes back and stands outside the tomb, weeping.
A man asks her why she is crying. She thinks he is the gardener, and asks where the body has been taken. Then he says her name: Mary. She turns and answers, Rabbouni, which means teacher. He tells her, Do not hold on to me, and sends her to the others. She goes and announces, I have seen the Lord.
She was the first witness, the first to carry the news. Early Christian writers called her the apostle to the apostles.
And then her story was rewritten. In a sermon in the year 591, Pope Gregory the Great blended her with two other women in the Gospels: the unnamed woman in Luke who washed Jesus' feet with her tears, and Mary of Bethany. For many centuries, Western art and preaching remembered her as a repentant prostitute, something no Gospel says.
The Eastern Orthodox churches never made that mix-up. They honor her as a Myrrh-Bearer and as Equal to the Apostles. In the West, the Catholic Church separated the three women again in its 1969 calendar, and in 2016 Pope Francis raised her day, July 22, to a full feast, calling her the apostle of the apostles.
Other stories grew around her too. A second-century text called the Gospel of Mary, which survives only in pieces, shows her teaching the disciples and being questioned by Peter. An Orthodox legend says she brought an egg to the emperor Tiberius, and it turned red in her hand as she spoke of the resurrection. Medieval French legend carried her by boat to Provence. And modern novels have claimed she was married to Jesus, a claim no historical source supports.
Through all of it, the oldest story stays simple: a woman who loved her teacher, who stayed when it hurt, who went back in the dark, and who was called by her name. The world got her story wrong for a very long time. She never stopped being who she was.
II
Her Symbolismwhere to find her
⚱The jar of ointment
In art she almost always carries a jar. Partly that comes from the spices Mark says she brought to the tomb, and partly from the later blending with the woman who anointed Jesus. Either way, it is the jar of someone who came prepared to care for the beloved, even after hope seemed gone. The jar is love that keeps its practical shape in grief.
◖The red cloak
Western painters often dressed her in red, as in the image above: the color of love, of courage, of a heart that will not stay small. In this Lineage, it is why she belongs to the current of Fire. Her flame is devotion.
◯The red egg
The Orthodox legend of the egg that turned red in her hand is why many Orthodox Christians dye eggs red at Pascha. A small, ordinary thing, made into a sign of new life. She brought the news in something you could hold.
⌓The open tomb
Through the archway in the image above, the stone is open and the sky is turning gold. It is the place where the worst thing was supposed to be final, and was not. In your life it is any door you thought had closed for good, and then, slowly, let light through.
✿The garden at dawn
She mistook him for the gardener. She was standing in a garden at sunrise, and did not know yet that everything had changed. Grief can keep us from recognizing what is right in front of us. She is near in the early morning, when the light is just beginning and you are not ready to believe it yet.
♡Your own name
One word changed everything for her: Mary. Spoken by someone who knew her. She is near whenever someone calls you by your true name, and whenever you finally say your own name with love.
≋Long, unbound hair
Artists gave her long loose hair, partly from the blended stories. Today many people read it differently: as freedom, as a woman unconcerned with looking proper, as grief that does not tidy itself up for anyone. You do not have to be put together to be holy.
✦The ones who stay
She is with everyone who stays at the bedside. Everyone who sits with the dying, who goes back to the grave, who keeps showing up when others have scattered. And she is with everyone whose story has been told wrong by people who were not there. You are known, beloved, as you really are.
III
An Intentionbeing called by your name
When you sit with Mary Magdalene, the question is not what have people said about me.
The question is: who am I when someone who truly knows me says my name?
Hold this. Many of us carry labels other people gave us. The difficult one. The too-much one. The one who fell apart. The sinner. The one who should be over it by now. Some of these labels were spoken once. Some have been repeated for years.
Set the intention this season to reclaim your own story. Not by arguing. Not by proving. She never wrote a defense of herself. She simply kept being the one who stayed, the one who went back, the one who carried the news.
And here is the deeper invitation: let your grief be a form of love, not a sign of weakness. She was weeping at the tomb when the most important moment of her life arrived. Her tears did not disqualify her. She was there because she loved.
You do not have to stop grieving to be called by name. You only have to keep showing up, and listen.
Your name, spoken with love. That is the whole of it.
IV
A Visualizationthe garden at dawn
Find a quiet place, ideally early in the morning or at dusk, when the light is changing. Sit comfortably. Put one hand over your heart. Close your eyes.
You are walking along a stone path in the half dark. The air is cool. In your arms you are carrying a small jar, wrapped in cloth. You know why you are carrying it. You are going to care for something you have lost.
The path leads into a garden. Roses, deep red, climb a weathered stone wall. Ahead is a rock face with an open doorway in it, and beyond the doorway the sky is beginning to turn gold.
You sit down on a warm stone near the opening. You set the jar beside you. And the tears come, the ones you have been holding. Let them come. No one here will ask you to stop.
After a while you notice that someone is sitting near you. A woman in a deep red cloak, her long hair loose, one hand resting over her heart, like yours. Her face is lifted toward the dawn. She has been crying too. She does not seem embarrassed by it.
She does not tell you that everything will be fine. She does not explain your grief to you. She simply stays.
Then she turns and looks at you, and says your name.
Not the name on your forms. Not a nickname or a label. Your name, the way it sounds when it is spoken by someone who has always known exactly who you are.
Notice what happens in your body when you hear it. Notice what loosens. Notice what you had stopped believing about yourself.
She smiles, and nods toward the archway. The sun is rising. The light is pouring through the open doorway, across the stones, across your hands, across the jar. The worst thing was not the last thing.
When you are ready, pick up the jar. It feels lighter now. Stand. Feel your feet on the stone path. Take one slow breath, and open your eyes. The garden is gone. But you have heard your name, and you know who you are.
V
An Invocationa visitor's prayer
Mary Magdalene is a saint honored by living Christian communities. This is not a church prayer, only a visitor's words, offered with respect. Say them softly, or read them in silence.
Mary of Magdala,
you who stayed
when the others scattered,
you who went back in the dark
carrying what love still had to give:
I come as a visitor,
with a jar in my hands
and tears I no longer hide.
Stand with me at the places
where I thought the story ended.
Sit with me
when I cannot recognize
what is right in front of me.
Help me set down
the names I was given
by people who were not there,
and help me hear
the one name that is true.
Let my grief be counted as love.
Let my staying be counted as faith.
And when the light comes through the doorway,
give me the courage
to go and tell it.
Beloved Witness,
I am listening for my name.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
VI
A Ritual in Her Honorthe jar and the name
You will need · tick as you gather
IThe Setting
Sit somewhere you can see the light change: a window facing east in the morning, or west in the evening. Place the empty jar in front of you, and the rose or petals beside it if you have them. Turn on a battery candle if you like.
Place a hand over your heart, as she does in the image above, and speak softly: Mary of Magdala, I come as a visitor, at the edge of the day. I am here to set something down, and to be called by name.
IIThe Old Names
On the slip of paper, write the labels you have carried that were never the whole truth about you. The names someone called you in anger. The roles you were stuck in. The story told about you by people who were not there.
Read them once, slowly. You do not need to argue with them. Simply notice how long you have carried them.
Fold the paper small and place it inside the jar. Put on the lid. Say: These are names I was given. They are not my name.
IIIThe True Name
Open your journal. At the top of the page, write your own first name, the one you answer to when someone who loves you calls.
Beneath it, write what that name really holds. What you have survived. Who you have stayed for. What you keep showing up to do, even in grief. Write as if you were someone who has known you your whole life, and loves you.
When you are done, say your name aloud, once, gently. Then wait. Notice what you feel when you hear it in your own voice.
IVThe Anointing
Place a small drop of olive oil or unscented lotion on your fingertips. Rub it slowly into your hands, the hands that have carried so much.
As you do, say: These hands have stayed. These hands have cared. These hands went back in the dark. I honor them.
Mary went to the tomb to anoint the one she loved. Today, you are tending yourself with the same care. That is not selfish. That is love that has finally included you.
VGo and Tell It
She was sent to carry the news. Before the day is over, tell one person one true thing about yourself that you have been afraid to say. Or tell someone who is grieving that you remember the one they lost. A single sentence is enough.
Then deal with the jar in whatever way feels right. Tear up the paper and recycle it, or keep the jar closed on a shelf as a reminder that those names are put away.
Close by saying: I have been called by my name. I will go and tell it.
Use only a little oil or unscented lotion, and skip it if your skin is sensitive. Keep essential oils out of this practice, since many are unsafe around pets. Rose thorns can be sharp, so loose petals work just as well. If you use a candle, choose a battery one. If grief, or old words spoken against you, feel too heavy to carry alone, please talk with someone you trust, a counselor, or your doctor.
VII
A Final Wordgo and tell it
Beloved, I want you to know this:
There will be people who tell your story without asking you. People who were not in the room, who did not see you stay, who never knew what you carried to the grave and back. For a long time, the world told her story that way too.
It did not change who she was.
She was the one who stayed. She was the first to see the morning. She was called by her name, and she went and told it.
Your tears are not a failure. She was crying when the most important moment of her life arrived. Grief is what love looks like when it keeps going.
You are allowed to go back to the hard places in the dark, carrying your small, practical love. You are allowed to not recognize hope at first. You are allowed to be surprised by the light.
And when someone finally says your name in the voice that knows you, or when you finally say it that way yourself, believe it.
The worst thing is not the last thing, beloved. Go and tell it.
With love and anointed, steady hands,
the one writing to you,
and the one who is also you,
and the one who went back in the dark
and heard her name.
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