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St. Mary Magdalene

She followed Jesus from Galilee and stayed to the end: she stood at the cross, saw where he was buried, went back to the tomb on the Sunday, and carried the news of the Resurrection to the apostles.

Feast July 22Galilee and Jerusalem

Canonized

Neither year is known, and nothing held here gives a date of birth or a date of death. The two traditions about the end of her life do not even place it in the same country: one has her dying at Ephesus, the other in a cave in Provence. Both are set out at the foot of this page, and neither is preferred here.

Mary Magdalene is named for Magdala, a town on the west shore of Galilee, though the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia hedges it with a second possible derivation. She came with Jesus from Galilee and ministered to him, and Luke records that seven devils had been cast out of her.

She was there at the end, when most were not: at the foot of the cross, and again when he was buried. On the Sunday she came back with burial oils there had been no time to use. Finding the stone moved, she did not announce a resurrection: she reported a theft. Her first message to the apostles, Francis says, was that somebody had taken the body while Jerusalem slept.

She went back a second time; Francis calls her stubborn for it. Still weeping, she did not know him when he stood in front of her, and took him for the gardener. What reached her was her own name. She was not allowed to hold on to him; she was sent instead, and went to the apostles with one sentence: I have seen the Lord.

That errand is why her day is what it is. In 2016 Francis raised the 22 July celebration from a memorial to a feast, the rank the apostles keep, and gave the Mass a new Preface naming her apostolorum apostola, apostle of the apostles. Archbishop Roche gave the reason: she was the first witness of the Risen Christ and the first to testify to the apostles, and therefore her celebration should carry the honor theirs do.

For centuries the West read her as one woman with Mary of Bethany and the unnamed sinner of Luke 7. Roche dates the hold that reading took to Gregory the Great, and says the study that unpicked it prepared the way for the calendar reform, since when the liturgical books have called her simply Mary of Magdala.

What they carried

Luke records that seven devils had been cast out of her. At the tomb she grieved twice over — first for his death, and then for a body she believed somebody had stolen — and when he stood in front of her she did not know him, taking him for the gardener until he said her name.

State of life

disciple · apostle to the apostles

Themes

grief · hope · mercy · conversion · preaching · the cross

Pope Francis on Mary Magdalene (General Audience, 17 May 2017)

  • NOTHING HELD HERE CALLS MARY MAGDALENE A PROSTITUTE, AND THIS NOTE IS ABOUT WHAT THE DOCUMENTS SAY RATHER THAN ABOUT WHAT ANYONE HAS DENIED. SCOPE OF THE CHECK: all five documents held under this record, plus the 2021 decree held under martha, searched for 'prostitute', 'harlot', 'whore', 'courtesan', 'fornicat-' and 'adulter-'. ZERO OCCURRENCES OF THE FIRST FIVE IN ALL SIX DOCUMENTS. The one hit is 'adulteress', once, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, and it is not about her life: it belongs to the derivation of her byname, in the article's opening sentence — 'Mary Magdalen was so called either from Magdala near Tiberias, on the west shore of Galilee, or possibly from a Talmudic expression meaning "curling women's hair," which the Talmud explains as of an adulteress.' That is a philologist's alternative to a place name, offered with 'possibly', and it makes no statement about the woman. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA USES 'sinner' TEN TIMES AND NEVER ONCE SAYS WHAT THE SIN WAS. Every occurrence is inside quotation marks and every one refers to the woman of Luke 7:37-50 — 'the anointing of Christ's feet by a woman, a "sinner" in the city' — whom the article then argues is the same person as Mary of Bethany and as Mary Magdalen. The 2021 decree uses the word once and leaves it equally undefined: 'the sinner whose sins the Lord had forgiven'. WHERE THE ATTRIBUTION COMES FROM IS ALSO IN THE DOCUMENTS: Roche's 2016 article dates the Western identification of the three women to after St Gregory the Great, and says the interpretation went on to shape western ecclesiastical writers, Christian art and the liturgical texts. So it reaches her through a merge with an unnamed woman whose sin no held document names, and not through anything said about Mary Magdalene. What the two decrees do with that merge is the next note.
  • BOTH DECREES TREAT THE MERGE AS A TRADITION THE LITURGICAL BOOKS HAVE ALREADY UNDONE, WHICH IS A DIFFERENT ACT FROM DENYING IT, AND THIS RECORD FOLLOWS THEM RATHER THAN PUTTING A REBUTTAL IN THE CHURCH'S MOUTH. The 2021 decree on Martha, Mary and Lazarus gives the older state and its consequence in one sentence: 'The traditional uncertainty of the Latin Church about the identity of Mary - the Magdalene to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection, the sister of Martha, the sinner whose sins the Lord had forgiven - which resulted in the inclusion of Martha alone on 29 July in the Roman Calendar, has been resolved in recent studies and times, as attested by the current Roman Martyrology, which also commemorates Mary and Lazarus on that day.' The 2016 side says the same thing from the other end. Roche writes that 'The Bollandists widely discussed the problem of the identification of the three women and prepared the way for the liturgical reform of the Roman Calendar', and the sentence after it reports that with the implementation of that reform the Roman Missal, the Liturgy of the Hours and the Martyrologium Romanum refer to her as Mary of Magdala. NEITHER DOCUMENT CONTAINS A DENIAL, A CORRECTION OR AN APOLOGY, and neither mentions the prostitute attribution at all. The summary therefore says what the books now do, in the past tense the documents use, and stops.
  • TWO SENTENCES IN THE ROCHE ARTICLE CARRY CONTENT THIS RECORD NEEDS AND ARE TOO DAMAGED TO QUOTE, SO THE CONTENT IS STATED IN THIS RECORD'S OWN WORDS AND THE WORDING IS NOT REPRODUCED ANYWHERE. Both fall in the same paragraph, the one opening 'The Holy Father Francis has taken this decision precisely in the context of the Jubilee of Mercy'. THE FIRST is the sentence naming St Gregory the Great: its verb 'identifies' is left without an object, so the person being identified is never named, and only two of the three figures the tradition merges appear in it at all. Its sense is not in doubt — that the Christian tradition in the West, especially after Gregory the Great, treated Mary Magdalene, the woman who poured perfume in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and the sister of Lazarus and Martha as one person — and that is what the summary and the first note above state. THE SECOND is the sentence listing the reformed books: it prints 'tests' where it means 'texts', and it has no main clause governing the list, so it cannot be reproduced as a sentence at all. Its sense is that with the implementation of the reform those books refer to Mary of Magdala. WHETHER THE FAULT IS IN THE ENGLISH RENDERING OR IN THE ORIGINAL CANNOT BE TOLD FROM HERE: the page held is the Holy See Press Office's English text, and no other language version is on disk. A quotation is a promise that the source said exactly that, neither sentence can carry the promise, and paraphrase with the defect written down is the honest alternative.
  • THE 2016 DECREE ITSELF IS NOT ON DISK, AND THAT IS A DIFFERENT SITUATION FROM MARTHA'S 2021 DECREE — RECORDED SO IT IS NOT SEARCHED FOR AGAIN ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT IT MUST BE THERE. What is held is the Holy See Press Office bulletin of 10 June 2016, which announces the act — 'Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, today issued a decree by which, in accordance with the will of the Holy Father, it is established that the liturgical memory of St. Mary Magdalene, celebrated on 22 July, will be elevated to the level of a feast day' — and prints the new Preface in full Latin; and Roche's companion article, which dates the decree to '3 June 2016, Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus'. NEITHER REPRODUCES THE DECREE'S OPERATIVE TEXT, where the 2021 bulletin carries Martha's decree in full over the signatures of Cardinal Sarah and Archbishop Roche. Everything this record says about the act therefore rests on two press office documents, and the calendar confirms the outcome independently: see the Liturgy Office citation below.
  • THE FEAST DAY AND ITS RANK COME FROM THE CALENDAR AND ARE CONFIRMED TWICE ON IT. The Liturgy Office's Universal Calendar for July prints 22 July, 'St Mary Magdalene', rank 'feast'. That office's separate page of additions and amendments lists her at 22 July under the heading 'Feast' and marks her with the symbol it explains as 'Commemorations which had been added or amended to the Universal Calendar subsequent to the publication of the 3rd edition of the Missale Romanum' — which is the 2016 elevation showing up in a calendar rather than in a press release, and is the reason this record can state the rank without the decree text. THE STANDING CAUTION APPLIES AND DOES NOT BITE HERE: the held calendar is current only to about 2021, so later changes are untested, but the act this record depends on is from 2016 and sits inside that window. The office's General-Roman-Calendar.pdf is not cited, for the reason recorded across this corpus — it is a stale edition, and at 29 July it still prints 'St Martha' alone.
  • THE IDENTITY QUESTION IS THE ONE MARY OF BETHANY'S RECORD IS BUILT AROUND, AND THE TWO RECORDS ARE WRITTEN TO AGREE. One article covers both women, because the encyclopedia gives Mary of Bethany no article of her own. It sets the disagreement out fairly — 'The Greek Fathers, as a whole, distinguish the three persons ... On the other hand most of the Latins hold that these three were one and the same. Protestant critics, however, believe there were two, if not three, distinct persons' — then concedes the decisive point, 'It is impossible to demonstrate the identity of the three', and advocates the identification anyway on grounds it does not hide: reluctance to identify Mary of Bethany with the 'sinner' is put down to 'a failure to grasp the full significance of the forgiveness of sin', and the reconstruction is commended because 'To the Catholic mind it all seems fitting and natural.' THIS RECORD CARRIES ONLY WHAT THE ARTICLE ATTRIBUTES TO MARY MAGDALEN BY NAME — the seven devils, the place at the foot of the cross, the burial, the first recorded witness of the Resurrection — exactly as Mary of Bethany's record carries only what is attributed to the sister of Martha, and neither borrows from the other across the identification. The calendar keeps the two celebrations seven days apart, 22 and 29 July, which is the practical form of the same restraint. Mary of Bethany's record holds the fuller account of the article's posture; this note points at it rather than repeating it.
  • THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY IS NOT IN THIS RECORD, AND THE ABSENCE IS A DECISION. The encyclopedia gives it to Mary of Bethany on the Fourth Gospel's own authority — 'St. John, however, clearly identifies Mary of Bethany with the woman who anointed Christ's feet' — and it reaches Mary Magdalene only through the identification the same article admits cannot be demonstrated. The encomium that goes with it, 'she hath wrought a good work upon Me . . . that also which she hath done shall be told for a memory of her', is quoted on Mary of Bethany's record and deliberately not here. Roche's article folds the anointing into the merged figure in the same way, so it supplies no independent route to her either. First class of omission: nothing held supports giving the anointing to Mary Magdalene under her own name.
  • FRANCIS PREACHED ON HER TWICE, EIGHT YEARS APART, AND THE MOVEMENT BETWEEN THE TWO IS RECORDED HERE RATHER THAN RECONCILED. Both cite the same verse, Luke 8:2. The General Audience of 17 May 2017 makes it a state she had been in: 'that woman, who, before encountering Jesus, had been at the mercy of evil (cf. Lk 8:2) now becomes the Apostle of the new and greatest hope'. The Jubilee Audience of 1 February 2025 makes it something done to her, and makes it the cause of everything after: 'Jesus healed her with mercy (cf. Lk 8:2), and she changed ... mercy brought her into God's dreams and gave new purpose to her journey.' The title moves too. In 2017 Francis coins 'the Apostle of the new and greatest hope' and does not use the older title at all, a year after his own decree had put 'apostolorum apostola' into the Preface; in 2025 he uses it and hands it to tradition, 'whom tradition calls "the apostle of the apostles"'. NOTHING HELD ADJUDICATES EITHER MOVEMENT, and two audiences eight years apart are not a development anyone has declared. FOURTH CLASS OF OMISSION, THE DECLINING HALF: the 2025 audience does supply a causal chain — healing, then change, then mission — and the summary declines to state it, because taking it would mean preferring the later gloss of Luke 8:2 to the earlier one on nothing but its date. The summary gives the seven devils as Luke's own words and leaves the reading of them to this note.
  • THE CONNECTION A READER WILL REACH FOR BETWEEN THE 2016 ELEVATION AND THE PROSTITUTE TRADITION IS IN NO DOCUMENT HELD. FOURTH CLASS OF OMISSION, THE REFUSING HALF. The obvious story is that the feast was raised in order to undo an old slander, and nothing held says so. SCOPE: the bulletin gives no reason at all beyond 'in accordance with the will of the Holy Father'. Roche gives reasons and they are different ones — 'The decision is situated in the current ecclesial context, which calls upon us to reflect more deeply on the dignity of women, the new evangelisation and the greatness of the mystery of divine mercy' — and his stated ground for the RANK is her witness: 'Precisely since she was an eyewitness to the Risen Christ, she was also the first to testify before the apostles', and 'Therefore it is right that the liturgical celebration of this woman should have the same level of festivity given to the apostles in the General Roman Calendar'. He treats the identification of the three women in a different paragraph and never links it to the decision. The summary states the reason he gives, and carries his 'therefore' rather than supplying one he does not.
  • EPHESUS AND PROVENCE ARE BOTH REPORTED HERE AND NEITHER IS PREFERRED. SECOND CLASS OF OMISSION. The encyclopedia gives the eastern account first: 'The Greek Church maintains that the saint retired to Ephesus with the Blessed Virgin and there died, that her relics were transferred to Constantinople in 886 and are there preserved. Gregory of Tours (De miraculis, I, xxx) supports the statement that she went to Ephesus.' It then turns without deciding: 'However, according to a French tradition ..., Mary, Lazarus, and some companions came to Marseilles and converted the whole of Provence. Magdalen is said to have retired to a hill, La Sainte-Baume, near by, where she gave herself up to a life of penance for thirty years.' The French account goes on to carry her to Aix by angels, and the article's own next sentence concedes the hole in it: 'History is silent about these relics till 745.' SCOPE OF THE CHECK: the four modern documents held were searched for 'Ephesus', 'Provence', 'Marseilles' and 'Sainte-Baume' — ZERO OCCURRENCES OF ALL FOUR IN ALL FOUR. One 1910 article is the whole file on the end of her life, it reports two incompatible accounts, and it settles neither. Neither does this record, and neither does the region field: that reads 'Galilee and Jerusalem', which is where the documents actually put her — 'one of the disciples who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee' in 2017, following him 'to the foot of the cross and in the garden in which she found the tomb' in Roche, and the empty tomb in a sleeping Jerusalem. MAGDALA IS NOT IN THE FIELD EITHER, because the article hedges the town itself in its opening sentence, offering the Talmudic derivation as an alternative to it.
  • THE NARRATIVE IS RATED 'traditional' AND NOT 'documented', AND THE DIFFERENCE IS IN THE SOURCES RATHER THAN IN HER. Everything the summary says about the cross, the burial and the garden is Gospel material reported by an article that states it flatly and without hedging, and Roche restates it in 2016 — 'Mary Magdalene formed part of the group of Jesus' disciples'. What is not on that footing is the last stretch of her life, which is two incompatible traditions and one silence of five centuries about the relics, treated in the note above. Mary of Bethany, Martha and Lazarus are all rated 'documented' because their records stop where the Gospels stop; this one does not, since a reader who has heard of Sainte-Baume is owed the account and the doubt together. As the definition of this field insists, the rating says nothing about whether she is a saint, and nothing about whether the veneration is authentic.
  • 'apostle to the apostles' IS IN state_of_life AS A TITLE THE LITURGY GIVES HER, NOT AS A CLAIM THAT SHE WAS ONE OF THE TWELVE. The Preface established with the 2016 decree is entitled 'de apostolorum apostola', and the bulletin renders it in its own text as 'Apostle of the apostles'. Roche attributes the term to two earlier writers — 'as Rabano Mauro and St. Thomas Aquinas said, "apostolorum apostola", as she announces to the apostles what they in turn will announce to all the world' — and Francis in 2025 attributes it to tradition. NO HELD DOCUMENT PUTS HER AMONG THE TWELVE, and Roche's argument stays comparative throughout: her celebration should have 'the same level of festivity given to the apostles', and she announces the resurrection 'like the other apostles'. The field carries the title the Church's own liturgical book prints, and stops there.
  • NO PATRONAGE IS RECORDED. SCOPE OF THE CHECK: all five documents held under this record searched for 'patron'. FOUR RETURN ZERO. The fifth, the General Audience of 17 May 2017, returns exactly one hit AND IT IS NOT ABOUT HER: it falls in the closing greetings, where the pope notes that the day is 'the liturgical memorial of Saint Paschal Baylon, Patron of Eucharistic Associations'. The true count for Mary Magdalene is therefore zero across five documents. Same rule that leaves Peter, John, Mark, Bakhita, Goretti, Kateri, Padre Pio, Teresa of Avila and Bonaventure empty.
  • convert IS NULL BECAUSE THE FIELD CANNOT BE ANSWERED FROM ANYTHING HELD. She was a Jewish woman of Galilee who followed Jesus in his own lifetime, which puts her on the same seam as the other first-generation disciples in this corpus: there is no reception into the Church to record, because the Church she belonged to was the one forming around him. SCOPE OF THE CHECK: all five documents searched for 'convert' and 'conversion'. Discounting one hit in each file that belongs to the archive header rather than to the document — every fetched file carries the line 'converted to markdown as-is' — the source text yields two. The encyclopedia has the French tradition in which she and her companions 'converted the whole of Provence', which is about other people's baptism and not hers. The 2025 audience is a catechesis on conversion as a change of direction, addressed to the hearers: 'One enters the new world by converting more than once' is a question put to the reader, not a statement about her biography. Neither answers what this field asks, and null is the honest answer rather than a gap nobody looked into.
  • THE OTHER THREE PEOPLE IN THIS TANGLE ALL HAVE RECORDS HERE, AND A READER CAN NOW FOLLOW ANY OF THEM. Mary of Bethany, Martha and Lazarus each have one, and Mary of Bethany's is the one to read next: it is built on the same encyclopedia article read from the other side, and its first note carries the fuller account of that article's posture. THE BLESSED VIRGIN IS A DIFFERENT PERSON AND HAS NO RECORD IN THIS CORPUS, deliberately rather than by omission. Checked on 2026-08-16 against every record in the corpus.
  • Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), Hugh Pope, 'St. Mary Magdalen', vol. 9 — source of the byname and its two derivations; of the New Testament summary, 'she is mentioned among the women who accompanied Christ and ministered to Him (Luke 8:2-3), where it is also said that seven devils had been cast out of her'; of 'She is next named as standing at the foot of the cross'; of 'She saw Christ laid in the tomb, and she was the first recorded witness of the Resurrection'; of the whole treatment of the identity of the three women quoted above; and of the two accounts of her later life and death. THE SAME FILE IS HELD TWICE, UNDER THIS SLUG AND UNDER mary-of-bethany, BECAUSE BOTH RECORDS DEPEND ON IT AND EACH EVIDENCE DIRECTORY MUST BE COMPLETE ON ITS OWN FOR RESTORE PURPOSES. The two copies carry their own fetched-at stamps, so their hashes always differ and MANIFEST.sha256 cannot tell a refetch from real drift; divergence is checked by diffing the bodies below the header comment. Checked 2026-08-16 — hashes differ, bodies byte-identical. NOTE: predates the 1969 reform and is not a source for the feast day. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09761a.htm
  • Holy See Press Office, Bulletin of 10 June 2016, 'The liturgical memory of Mary Magdalene becomes a feast, like that of the other apostles' — source of Cardinal Sarah's issuing of the decree, of the elevation of the 22 July celebration from memory to feast, and of the new Preface 'de apostolorum apostola', printed there in full Latin and including the lines that give the reason in the liturgy's own voice: 'Qui in hortu maniféstus appáruit Maríæ Magdalénæ ... ac prima adoráverat a mórtuis resurgéntem, et eam apostolátus offício coram apóstolis honorávit'. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/06/10/160610b.html
  • Archbishop Arthur Roche, then Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, 'Mary Magdalene, apostle of the apostles', published with the decree in the Bulletin of 10 June 2016 — source of the date of the decree, of the reasons given for it, of the 'prima testis' and the first testimony before the apostles, of the attribution of 'apostolorum apostola' to Rabanus Maurus and Thomas Aquinas, of the Bollandists preparing the way for the reform, and of the two sentences that are paraphrased rather than quoted for the reason set out above. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2016/06/10/160610c.html
  • Francis, General Audience of 17 May 2017, in the catechesis series on Christian hope — source of 'She was one of the disciples who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee'; of her going to the tomb with aromatic oils because 'On the day of the Passion, there had not been enough time to complete the funeral rites'; of the first report being a theft, 'the first announcement that Mary makes is not the one of the Resurrection, but of a theft perpetrated by persons unknown while all Jerusalem slept'; of the second visit, 'She was stubborn! She went, she returned ... because she was not convinced!'; of the double grief, 'Mary suffers twice as much: first for the death of Jesus, and then for the inexplicable disappearance of his body'; of the failure to recognize him, 'she does not become suspicious even when she sees the man behind her, whom she believes is the custodian of the garden'; of the name, 'she discovers the most overwhelming event in the history of mankind when she is finally called by her name'; and of the errand, 'she is sent to carry the news to the brethren' with 'I have seen the Lord!'. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20170517_udienza-generale.html
  • Francis, Jubilee Audience of 1 February 2025 — the second papal document held on her, treated above for what moves between them. Source of 'Jesus healed her with mercy (cf. Lk 8:2), and she changed'; of the turning, 'It is repeated several times that Mary turned around'; of 'She can dry her tears, because she has heard her own name: only the Master pronounces it in this way'; and of the title attributed to tradition, 'from Mary Magdalene, whom tradition calls "the apostle of the apostles", we learn hope'. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2025/documents/20250201-udienza-giubilare.html
  • Universal Calendar, 22 July — 'St Mary Magdalene' [feast]. Liturgy Office, Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/JulUC.shtml The same office's page of additions and amendments to the Universal Calendar lists her at 22 July under 'Feast' with the amendment mark, which is the corroboration described above. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Info/UC-additions.shtml
  • Congregation for Divine Worship, decree of 26 January 2021 (published 2 February 2021), designating 29 July in the General Roman Calendar as the Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Held under martha rather than under this slug, and cited here for the sentence about the traditional uncertainty over the identity of Mary, quoted above. Martha's record and Mary of Bethany's both carry it, and Martha's has the fuller account of what changed on that date. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/02/02/210202c.html
  • HER LATER LIFE IS NOT IN THE SUMMARY BECAUSE THE SOURCES CANNOT AGREE ON IT, AND HERE IS WHAT THEY SAY. Two traditions survive and they cannot both be true. The Greek Church has her leaving for Ephesus with the Blessed Virgin and dying there. A French tradition has her landing at Marseilles and spending the last thirty years of her life in penance in a cave at La Sainte-Baume in Provence. The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia, the one document held here that treats the question, reports both and settles neither. Everything the summary does tell you about her — Galilee, the cross, the burial, the empty tomb, the errand to the apostles — comes from the Gospels and stands on quite different ground. So a reader who has heard of La Sainte-Baume is not being kept from it; it is here, unresolved, because that is the state the documents leave it in.