Saint Mary Magdalene: Apostle to the Apostles

Saint Mary Magdalene is the first witness to the Resurrection of Christ and is honored by the Catholic Church under the unique title Apostolorum Apostola, "the Apostle to the Apostles." Pope Francis elevated her liturgical commemoration from a Memorial to a Feast in 2016, the highest liturgical rank granted to a non-apostolic, non-Marian saint in the universal Catholic Church.

Identity in the New Testament

Mary Magdalene appears in all four canonical Gospels. Her name distinguishes her by her home town: Magdala, a Greek-speaking fishing town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, about three miles north of Tiberias.

The Gospels record several specific facts about her:

Christ cast seven demons out of her (Luke 8:2, Mark 16:9). The Catholic tradition has interpreted this as a serious diabolical possession from which Christ liberated her.
She was among the women who supported Christ's public ministry out of their own resources (Luke 8:1-3).
She was present at the foot of the Cross during the Crucifixion (Matthew 27:55-56, Mark 15:40-41, John 19:25), one of the few disciples who did not flee.
She helped prepare Christ's body for burial.
She was the first witness to the empty tomb on the morning of the Resurrection (Mark 16:1-8, Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-18).
The risen Christ appeared first to her in the garden by the tomb and commissioned her to announce the Resurrection to the apostles (John 20:11-18).

The Catholic title "Apostle to the Apostles" derives from this final commission. Mary Magdalene was sent by the risen Christ to announce the central fact of the Catholic faith to those who would become the foundational apostles. In the order of resurrection witness, she is first.¹

The Latin tradition of identification with three women

For roughly fourteen hundred years, the Western Catholic tradition (beginning with a 591 sermon by Pope Saint Gregory the Great) identified Mary Magdalene with two other women in the Gospels: the unnamed sinful woman who anointed Christ's feet with tears and ointment at the house of the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50), and Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Saint Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42, John 11-12). This three-women composite Magdalene became the standard subject of medieval Catholic devotion and Western iconography (the alabaster jar, the long hair, the penitential identity).

In 1969, Pope Saint Paul VI's revision of the Roman Calendar separated the three women, restoring the liturgical commemoration of Mary Magdalene to the New Testament data alone: the woman of Magdala, freed from seven demons, witness to the Resurrection. The other two women received their own commemorations.

The Eastern Catholic and Orthodox tradition has always kept the three women distinct.

The Resurrection encounter

The Johannine account of the Resurrection encounter (John 20:11-18) is among the most theologically and personally moving passages in the New Testament. Mary, weeping at the empty tomb, encountered a man she took for the gardener. She asked him where he had laid the body. The man spoke her name: "Mary." She recognized him immediately as the risen Lord, replying in Aramaic: "Rabboni" (my teacher).

Christ then gave her the commission: "Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary returned to the apostolic community and announced the Resurrection. The Western Catholic liturgical title Apostolorum Apostola, used in patristic homilies (notably by Saint Augustine in the fifth century) and revived by Pope Francis's 2016 elevation, is grounded in this commission.

For the Resurrection itself as the central event of Christian faith, see What is the Paschal Mystery? and the Resurrection as the first Glorious Mystery of the Rosary.

Later life and traditions

The canonical New Testament records nothing of Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection appearances. Several later traditions developed:

The Ephesus tradition: that Mary Magdalene accompanied the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist to Ephesus, where she died and was buried. Her relics were translated to Constantinople in 886.
The Provence tradition: that Mary Magdalene, with Martha, Lazarus, and other disciples, was set adrift in a boat without sails after the Christian community at Jerusalem was scattered. The boat landed on the southern coast of Gaul. Mary preached the Catholic faith, then retired to a cave at La Sainte-Baume, where she spent the last thirty years of her life in contemplative prayer.

The Provence tradition is preserved at the Basilica of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in southern France, where her relics (transferred from Vézelay in the thirteenth century) are venerated. The Vatican has not definitively ruled on the historicity of either tradition.

Patronage and devotion

Saint Mary Magdalene is patron of penitents, of the contemplative life, of hairdressers and perfumers (from the alabaster jar of ointment), and of converts. Her feast on July 22 was elevated from a Memorial to a Feast by Pope Francis in 2016, by the decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship dated June 3, 2016.

The Pope's elevation of her feast was significant: among the saints commemorated in the General Roman Calendar, the elevation to Feast was previously reserved for apostles and certain unique New Testament figures. Mary Magdalene's new rank brings her commemoration into liturgical parity with the Twelve Apostles.

For the broader Catholic theology of the Communion of Saints and Mary Magdalene's apostolic witness, see the related learn pages. For the Easter season in which her witness is most prominent, see Easter.

Sources

For the patristic interpretation of Mary Magdalene as Apostle to the Apostles, see Saint Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John 121, and the homilies of Pope Saint Gregory the Great. For the 2016 elevation, see the Congregation for Divine Worship's decree Apostolorum Apostola (June 3, 2016), and Pope Francis's catechesis on the same date. ↩