St. Mary Magdalene, Feast

Mary Magdalene, sometimes called Mary of Magdala, was a woman who, according to the four  Canonical Gospels traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to His Crucifixion and Resurrection. She is mentioned by name twelve times in the Canonical Gospels, more than most of the Apostles and more than any other woman in the Gospels, other than Jesus’s family. Mary’s epithet Magdalene may mean that she came from the town of Magdala, a fishing town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in Roman Judea.

The Gospel of Luke lists Mary Magdalene as one of the women who traveled with Jesus and helped support his ministry “out of their resources”, indicating that she was probably wealthy. The same passage also states that seven demons had been driven out of her, a statement which is repeated in Mark 16. In all the four Canonical Gospels, Mary Magdalene was a witness to the crucifixion of Jesus and, in the Synoptic Gospels,  she was also present at his burial. All the four gospels identified her, either alone or as a member of a larger group of women which includes Jesus’ mother, as the first to witness the empty tomb and, either alone or as a member of a group, as the first to witness Jesus’s resurrection.

For these reasons, Mary Magdalene is known in some Christian traditions as the “apostle to the apostles”.