Journeying with Mary Magdalene from Lent to the triumph of Easter

Michie · Mar 26, 2024

Lent can be a bit of a challenge. So lately I’ve adopted the idea of walking through Lent with a particular saint. And for me, I’ll be honest, that saint is always Mary Magdalene. Not that I haven’t looked around, but when it comes to something as important as a guide who is an expert, why look further? From sinner to apostle, her life is a perfect trajectory of the season of Lent, from its penitential beginnings to its glorious conclusion.

An early friendship

She’s the best. Hands down, without question. And you might wonder how I came to that unbiased conclusion. It started about half a century ago. That sounds like a long time, but nuns have a different sense of time altogether, believe me. I was a 13-year-old Protestant girl from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, an incurable book worm and bored to tears one particular summer. My best friend, Christine, and I would spend hours in the downtown library, and that was the high point of our entertainment — apart from the new local mall, for which money was needed. Naturally we opted for the library where you can read for free and take it home with you. On one of these many visits, we came across an unusual book called “The Song of Bernadette” and another called “The Penitent” (about St. Maria Goretti). When I checked my junior high library for more of these books, I found a cream-colored hardcover with a red lily stamped on the cover. It was a novel about Mary Magdalene. OK, saint novels, especially about St. Mary Magdalene, are generally not that great, but this one was published by the St. Anthony Guild, making it relatively safe. That’s how it started. She was one of my first introductions to saints, and it stuck. And since I never liked anything by half, liking Mary Magdalene was no exception. I considered her my personal friend from this point on.

Magdalene was a wholehearted and fearless follower of Jesus. I wanted the same, and I needed someone to show me what that looked like.

The book was called “The Scarlet Lily.” It’s out of print, but even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t recommend it. Although it was exactly what I needed at 13, trying to reread it 20 years later, I found it a bit schmaltzy and definitely not a future classic. Just the same, I’m most grateful to the author for the introduction to my saint. What I did learn from that book was the fact that Magdalene was a wholehearted and fearless follower of Jesus. I wanted the same, and I needed someone to show me what that looked like.

Really, it was these three saints, and Magdalene in particular, who were responsible for my 13-year-old-self deciding most adamantly — as only teenagers can do — that I was going to become Catholic. It was a simple logical conclusion in my mind. I read about these larger-than-life heroines and saw their stained-glass windows in the Catholic church across the street from where I lived. If they belonged to Sacred Heart Church, then that’s where I was going to go. I fully intended to be a heroine, too.

Magdalene’s conversion

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