Today is the feast of Mary Magdalene, Equal of the Apostles. According to the Gospels Mary Magdalene was the first on the scene on the morning of the resurrection. What happens next is a jumbled mess, and in its own way (taken as a whole) expresses the confusion and bewilderment of the community on that morning. Matthew’s version is perhaps the earliest, and the simplest of all. The Myrrh Bearing Women are met first by an Angel, and then by the Risen Lord himself who sends them off to tell the Apostles what they had seen. Mark reports that the women were terrified and said nothing – but Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, and she became the Evangelist, the messenger of the good news to the gathered disciples. Indeed this theme is carried throughout the other Gospels in one form or another. Luke’s narrative has the women carry the message to the eleven, who refuse to believe their story (but Peter goes to see for himself). John’s version is interesting because it is only Mary Magdalene who goes to the tomb at dawn, and she alone goes to report to the others that someone has removed the body of the Lord. What is interesting here however, is that while John and Peter rush back to the tomb with Mary Magdelene – Jesus still appears to her first, after they have left, and, as in the other Gospels she becomes the first one to announce the resurrection.

The Kondak for today celebrates Mary Magdalene as: “messenger of joy to the disciples”.