Saint Mary Magdalene is called the apostle to the apostles because according to all four gospels she bears witness to Christ’s resurrection, empowering the Paschal sunrise in her awakened heart to dawn in every generation.
The apostles, prophets and saints received her prophetic word, the injunction to turn and see Christ risen in their midst, by awakening to the uncreated light of the resurrected Christ in glory. They transmit his wisdom to us, that we too might turn and see. Her humble witness does not need to contest the Patriarchal culture that veiled her wisdom because she is hid with Christ at the heart of the Gospel and Epistles of Saint John, together with the Book of Revelation. If as the Gospel of Philip indicates, she is the Beloved Disciple and co-companion of Jesus, concealed by veiled and holy anonymity, she ensures that no offence is caused by her witness in two millennia of Patriarchal culture. This meant that the resurrection to glory was opened to countless hearts that would otherwise have been left bereft of a crucial witness to the wisdom of the glory of grace.
Divinely human and humanly divine, the mysteries of Christ’s wisdom unfold in the Spirit as theosis, which Scripture calls glorification. Christ shares his resurrection, ascension and glorification with us through the Apostle to his apostles, and the Holy Spirit opens the apostles to these mysteries in the Holy of Holies. Wisdom’s dawn in our time points towards the sunrise of wisdom’s renewed transmission, able to acknowledge the witness and the function of love that inspired it. Here on the Stiperstones, when the sun rises each morning like resurrection, a perennial icon of resurrection inspires our hearts to turn and see. Every moment is Paschal when the eye of the heart opens and the uncreated sun shines forth into our lives. Sunset on the Stiperstones imparts her flame, the living flame of love, whilst sunrise reveals her glory, awakening hearts in uncreated light.