Magdalene
Mary Magdalene, by AlexGilBle Propers: The Fifth Sunday in Lent , AD 2025 C Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great. Grace mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. You can’t have Easter without Mary Magdalene. Mary is a wealthy and influential woman; this much is made clear in the text. One can safely do away with the unfortunate tradition that she was a lady of the night. Her social position is simply too high. Mary lives with her sister Martha and brother Lazarus in Bethany, a town two miles east of Jerusalem. I’d be tempted to call it a suburb, if that weren’t anachronistic. And this family proves important to our story for a number of reasons, the first being that their house appears to be Jesus’ preferred residence whenever He travels to Jerusalem. He would do so several times a year as an observant Jewish man, for Passover, Pentecost, Sukkot, and even Hanukkah. Bethany is very convenie...
