In this Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has raised 22nd July, when we remember St Mary Magdalen, from being a Memorial to a Feast (Gloria etc). She suffers from mistaken identity, being confused with the woman taken in adultery or the one who came in from the street, whereas the only reference to her past in the Gospels is that Jesus cast out 7 spirits from her. More importantly, she was a faithful disciple right to the Crucifixion. Then she was the first to meet the risen Lord, and so became the first to share the Good News – the “Apostle to the Apostles”.

Here Malcolm Guite, Anglican priest and poet based in Cambridge, writes about her in sonnet form.

Men called you light so as to load you down,
And burden you with their own weight of sin,
A woman forced to cover and contain
Those seven devils sent by Everyman.
But one man set you free and took your part,
One man knew and loved you to the core.
The broken alabaster of your heart
Revealed to him alone a hidden door,
Into a garden where the fountain sealed,
Could flow at last for him in healing tears,
Till, in another garden, he revealed
The perfect love that cast out all your fears,
And quickened you with love’s own sway and swing,
As light and lovely as the news you bring.

From “Sounding the Seasons”, Malcolm Guite, 2012