During our trip to France we went to Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, a cathedral dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene.
Despite what you may have heard, Mary Magdalene was not a whore. She was a close friend of Jesus, hung around him a lot, tended to him while he was on the cross, cleaned his body after he died and was the first to see him after he rose from the dead.
At least that's what I think I learned at Catholic school... I can't quite remember. I'm sure about the "not a whore" and "first to see Jesus" parts. They really drilled those parts home.
The cathedral holds 2 relics of Mary, her skull and a hunk of her skin that Jesus supposedly touched after the resurrection. In case you didn't go to Catholic school, or take art history in college, relics are body parts of holy people kept as objects of reverence.
I love relics, in all their glorious grossness. And I love reliquaries too, especially this one since they made Mary a wig of golden hair.
4 comments:
How magnificent!
These photos are so beautiful. Thank you for sharing them with us.
To this day, I don't know why people insist Mary was a prostitute. If Jesus chose her as company, she must have had a good heart.
Thaanks for this
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