The Path of a Christian Witch (10 page)

It was the Goddess I was looking for, the essence of fertility and abundance, the rage and fury, life and death . . .
Was there room for her in my Christian practice? It has always seemed clear to me that for a child to grow physically and morally, she or he needs a father figure and a mother figure. A logical correlate to this statement is that to grow spiritually, humans also need a mother and a father deity figure. Different denominations of Christianity have dealt with this issue in various ways. In the Catholic faith, the devotion to Mary is very much alive. The imposing cathedrals and shrines in her honor, the ritual prayers of devotion, and the pilgrimages to the locations of her many sightings make Mary a goddess in everything but name. In practice, she is treated as a goddess. Her assumption into heaven, body and soul, demonstrates her status above the human condition.

Mary as a Goddess

Mary has always been at the center of a debate. Cast away by some and adulated by others, there is no doubt that she fascinates and compels us more than we can explain. She is the Triple Goddess par excellence: the Maiden, Mother, and Crone all wrapped up in one splendid figure. But aside from her beatific, virginal depiction, she is as deep and complex as any woman. And she has grown with us for over two thousand years.

The lore that surrounds Mary reaches back to before her own birth. Joachim and Anne, being advanced in age, had given up hope of having children. When Anne unexpectedly became pregnant, she dedicated her unborn child to the service of God. And so it was that Mary was presented to the temple as a child, dedicated from the start to serve God. She received the great honor of weaving the temple veil, an honor reserved for very few. When she became of age, it is said that the temple priests searched for a worthy widower to take her in and make her his wife. Joseph was selected by the temple priests, and they were promised to each other.

The rest of the story is contained in the Gospels. While still unmarried, Mary received the visit of the angel Gabriel, who announced that she was to bear the child of God through the intercession of the Holy Spirit. And so it was. She gave birth to a son, Jesus, who would change our world forever.

Throughout the Gospels, we see Mary as a woman of humility and complete devotion. She sees all and “keeps these things in her heart.”
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She is the only one who truly understands the scope of her son’s mission on Earth. She understands his power, she understands his sacrifice, and always she is silently present. She is the absolute mother. She has the humility and faith to put her sadness and heart-rending pain aside for the sake of the work her son has to do. Yet she does not turn away. She does not crumble under the pain of seeing her son persecuted and killed. She stands at his every step. She is always there.

Mary has permeated our cultural consciousness throughout the years, and her image is ever changing. In the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, the
Theotokos
, or bearer of God, is central to devotion.
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The icons of the Virgin are holy relics and have been repeatedly graced with miraculous events. In Poland, the cult of the Black Madonna is a centerpiece of nationalistic and religious practice. Many depictions have been rendered of the Madonna with a dark complexion. Some archaeologists claim that this is due to the conversion of Old World goddess figures, such as Isis for example, into Christian icons. A goddess transformed, if you will, in order to remain with her people . . .

In our current age, Mary has been present in the most fantastic of ways. Many sightings of her have been reported, the most publicized of these at Lourdes and at Fatima. Believing in the authenticity of these apparitions is not mandatory to dogma, meaning that belief in their authenticity is not considered a pillar of the Catholic faith. Regardless, it has given us the opportunity to reunite with Mary in a new way. Whereas Mary had been depicted as a virginal and innocent child-woman throughout the Renaissance, all of a sudden we meet a Mary who is radically different. She is the bleeding heart who exhorts us to repentance and warns us of ill fates. She comes to us in urgency, in love, but also in accusation for our straying. She pleads for our return to prayer and devotion. She is a guide who stands by us and leads us, though prayer, back to her son.

Mary is the embodiment of our closest aspiration to a divine relationship. Not only did she stand in the divine presence all her life, she has also remained a full-fledged woman. She is the divine intercessor who carries our pledges directly to the heart of God. She is the teacher who teaches us to stay in the light despite the overcoming darkness. She is the protectress who intercedes for our human nature in front of the divine altar. She is the one who has witnessed evil and suffering and who has not flinched. She is hope and faith, no matter the darkness of the hour. She understands our journeys in despair when the world stops making sense. And she does not flinch. She is a warrior woman in all her gentleness and compassion. A true woman.

The Other Mary

The beauty of this path is that we are not bound by dogma. We can listen to any legend, rumor, and conspiracy theory and decide in our hearts whether we can subscribe to this story or not. No woman in the history of the world has triggered our collective imagination more than Mary Magdalene. Even now, two thousand years later, she causes turmoil in our psyche, in our religious institutions, and in our faith. She haunts us, she teases us; we simply cannot get rid of her image. And thank heavens for that! Her recurrent presence and the inflamed discussions around her life and message are a living testimony of her importance in our lives and in our relationship to God.

As with Jesus’ mother, the Gospel is quite succinct on details of this central character. But fables about her abound, forming a true Christian mythology that the church has had a hard time suppressing.

So, what do we know for sure? We know that she was a disciple of Jesus and that she had a special place among the disciples. We know that she followed Jesus to the foot of the cross and was with him until the very end. We also know that she was the first one to witness the resurrection. She witnessed the empty tomb and spoke to Jesus in his resurrected state. She was mandated by him to announce the news to the apostles, awarding her the title “Apostle of the Apostles.”

That’s all we know.

Much confusion exists with regard to Mary’s actual identity. Pope Gregory I, in his infamous speech in the year 591, forever merged the identity of Mary of Magdala with that of the adulteress. Maybe in an attempt to suppress devotion to her, her image was depicted as a lascivious woman, a prostitute, penitent for her wayward ways. There is no actual evidence in the Gospels that this was the case. Some theories say that Mary must have been a woman of means, a woman of the world, which could explain the image of conversion from a worldly life to a more spiritual life. She may have been a financial supporter of Jesus and his apostles, giving them lodging and sustenance. Other theories suggest that Mary Magdalene and Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, are also one and the same. So much speculation exists on the actual identity of this important woman. Undoubtedly, she was a fervent follower of Christ and had a special relationship with him. And now, let the fun begin . . .

Legends abound on Mary Magdalene. One school of thought is that she was in fact married to Jesus, that she was his wife as well as his disciple.
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This is supported by accounts in the Gnostic Gospels that he often kissed her on the mouth, which could mean the actual act of kissing or, in the Gnostic tradition, a passage of wisdom. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene,
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while being severely damaged, shows that Jesus did teach her things that were very different from the other apostles. It also shows a very clear rivalry between Peter and her due to her special status. Other authors support the marriage theory because, according to Jewish law, a man could not become a teacher until he was married. It would have been unlikely that the Temple elders would have let Jesus preach in the Temple had he not been married. However, the actual marriage is not mentioned in any Gospel or text that we know of.

The great legend of Mary Magdalene and Jesus does not stop there, however. It is told that Mary Magdalene was forced to flee the Holy Land. She landed on the shores of France in a boat without oars, and she established herself there. She was accompanied by a young girl of thirteen named Sarah. It is believed that Sarah was the daughter of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, the Holy Grail incarnate. The bloodline of Jesus. This bloodline was eventually merged into the line of the Merovingian kings of France, who were famed for their red hair and their uncanny abilities. A secret order was formed to protect this bloodline and to preserve knowledge from unscrupulous factions. Add into this intrigue the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, the Crusades, lines of kings, Joan of Arc, the Holy Inquisition, the Order of Saint-Sulpice, Leonardo da Vinci, and Isaac Newton, and you get the biggest conspiracy theory ever told. It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.

Mary Magdalene is central to my devotion. Whatever I choose to believe about her relationship to Jesus, it is clear to me that she held a special place. All the efforts to bury her and distort her story only reinforce the fact that she has a lot to teach us. As an apostle, she has no match. She is strong and devoted. As with Jesus’ mother, she does not flinch in front of pain and suffering. She walks the path to the very end. She is also fully female. If anything, the merging with the adulteress only reinforces the sexual dimension of her being, a dimension that has been completely washed out of the Scriptures. The depiction of her having long, flowing red hair brings us back to a place where one can be holy and powerful at the same time. She is not the meek, obedient servant. She stands tall without excusing herself. She also displays unwavering faith, the kind of faith that could raise the dead.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene lets us see that Jesus taught Mary very different things from the other apostles. These teachings seem more mystical in nature. Unfortunately, the section in which Mary actually relates these teachings has been destroyed, and we may never know what Jesus told her in private. Yet we can learn a lot just by looking at all this information, the official writings and the legends combined.

If one does believe that Mary Magdalene is indeed the sister of Martha and Lazarus, then I recommend an old document, published by Cistercian Publications, which is an absolute gem.
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It tells of the story of Mary and her sister Martha, who establish themselves in France (coincidence?). Whereas Martha busies herself with healing the sick and feeding the hungry, Mary retires to a mountain cave. There she lives in ecstatic contemplation, feeding herself from the hands of angels and sitting in daily communion with our Lord.

We see here the two paths of godly work: the practical and the mystical. Jesus told Peter that he was the rock on which Jesus would build his church. Whereas Peter was entrusted with building a worldly church to perpetuate the teachings of Jesus, Mary’s gift was one of the spirit and of revelation. The old rivalry found in Mary Magdalene’s gospel is still alive, and both aspects are necessary in our world. Mary’s gift to us is the gift of spirit, the gift of sitting in communion and gaining a true relationship with the Divine. She guides in silence, in secrecy and humility. We can look to her and learn to be strong and virile and elevated.

Another Way to See the Femininity of God

Sometimes the femininity of God comes in more subtle expressions. If we believe that Jesus is the embodiment of God, it is then by observing Jesus’ actions and listening to his teachings that we gain a better understanding of the essence of God. Jesus used many stories and metaphors to convey his message. He often used metaphors for God that portrayed God in a woman’s role, such as a housekeeper, which would have been unheard of in a Judaic vision of a kingly deity. As author Sandra M. Schneiders puts it: “Jesus delegitimized the stereotypically male ‘virtues’ and the typically masculine approach to reality; he validated the stereotypically female virtues and lived a distinctly ‘feminine’ lifestyle.”
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Jesus espoused this lifestyle by taking care of the sick and the poor, by speaking of peace and tolerance, and by assuming the servant role on more than one occasion. He also showed respect for women by acting toward them differently than Jewish custom expected. In Jesus, Christians are presented with a deity image that incorporates both the feminine and the masculine. He symbolically sustains our life with his body, the same way women bring forth life into the world. The feminine aspect of God is always there, either in the devotion to the actual mother of Christ or in the recognition of the feminine virtues of Jesus. A Christian practice need not therefore make abstraction of the Goddess. In an all-encompassing deity, there is a place for both God and Goddess.

And Then, There Were Two

One night a dream came. I saw a man with a crown of thorns. A little bird flew by his head and came to rest close to him. This vision faded into another. Men dressed in suits came into my home looking for me. They told me that I was to come with them, that they had been looking for me. I was brought to a land removed from the world. I had been removed from the world because of my power to destroy evil, a power that men feared greatly. I was dressed in long, gray robes, a veil on my head. I was riding a donkey on a dusty road surrounded by other people dressed like me. Sand-colored hills rolled all around us, an occasional hamlet visible in the distance. The wind blew a dry, sand-filled heat on our faces. All was quiet, save for the wind.