Preview: Benson on "Our Friend Vindicated" and Saint Mary Magdalene

As we pick up our series on Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson's The Friendship of Christ on the Son Rise Morning Show during the Easter Season, we'll explore how Benson explores the Resurrection encounter of Saint Mary Magdalene and Our Savior, Our Friend Vindicated.

Benson begins with a brief consideration of what this vindication meant to Saint Mary Magdalene--whom he considers as being the woman who washed Christ's feet at the Pharisee's banquet in Luke 7:36-50 and the woman who stood at the foot of the Cross with Our Lady and Saint John--she is the special friend reunited with her Absolver, King, and Friend:

Our affair to-day is not with the putting of Christ's enemies under His feet, but with the restoring of Christ to His friends' arms; with the vindication of Christ as our Divine Friend in whom we trusted and have not been disappointed; not with His final forcible manifestation to the world. . . .

Let us watch that process, then, through the eyes of the humblest of His friends -- one who was far from possessing the serene clear-sightedness of Mary His mother, or the desperately quiet confidence of the disciple whom He loved -- but one who at least had to her credit, in spite of her sins against the Interior Voice and even against the decency of the world, that she "loved much," and "did what she could" -- two simple virtues to which even the lowest of His lovers can aspire.

So, first, Benson relates the story of the penitent public sinner, doing more than the host to welcome Jesus:

A silence falls as, unconscious of all except herself and Him, she droops her head so low that the tears drip on to His feet; and as, shocked at her own defilement of those sacred feet, she first wipes them frantically with her long hair, and then, as if to compensate for the touch of her tears, wrenches open the pot of perfume and dashes out the nard -- the world's whispering begins, up there in the places of honour.

Jesus lifts His Head; and then, in a sentence or two, all is done.

"Thou seest this woman . . . She at least has done what thou, my host, didst leave undone . . . She loved much. She loved much . . . And therefore her sins are forgiven. Go, my daughter, and my friend. Sin no more."

Then, Benson envisions her going to see Jesus on the way to Calvary and at the Cross:

Then she has followed Him again, through the streets, out through the gate, and up the little steep ascent. And, at last, when all is done, and He hangs there, stripped and shamed and tormented, and the soldiers have broken the line and fallen out into the crowd, she has pushed her way through, fought even to the foot of the quivering tree, and once more has "done what she could" . . . Once more she has washed those feet with her tears; and there, running down together on to the ground, there has flowed a sweeter stream than any that waters Paradise -- the tears of the pardoned sinner and the Blood of the Saviour. . . .

Surely at last that Power will vindicate itself, even at the eleventh hour; and the nails will burst into gems and the cross into flower, and He, her Friend, radiant again, will come down from His throne to receive a world's adoration! Is it possible that she herself, standing there, looking to Mary and John for encouragement, and then back again at Himself, whispered in her agony, "Since Thou art the Christ, save Thyself -- and me?"

. . . "And Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost. . . ."

At last, describes her encounter with the Angels and the Risen Christ, her Friend:

As she throws herself forward, speechless with love and desire, to grasp His Feet -- to assure herself even by touch that it is these same feet indeed which she kissed in the Pharisee's house, and on the Cross of Calvary -- that it is Himself, and no phantom -- He moves back from her.

"Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. Do not touch me." . . . That Friendship is not what it used to be: it is infinitely higher. It is not what it used to be, since the limitations of that Sacred Humanity are gone -- those limitations by which It was here and not there; by which It could suffer and grow weary and hunger and weep -- limitations that endeared It to Its lovers, since they could indeed minister to It, comfort It, and hold It up. And Its expansion in Glory is not yet consummated -- "I am not yet ascended to my Father" -- that expansion of the Ascension and the Nine Days' Journey through the Heavenly Hierarchy, from the position "a little lower than the angels" to the Session and Coronation at the right Hand of the Majesty on high -- that expansion of which the Descent of the Holy Ghost is the expression, and the Sacramental Presence of that same Humanity on a hundred altars the result.

After this imaginative narration of Saint Mary Magdalene's encounters with Our Friend Jesus, Benson applies these lessons to us--but that will have to wait for another discussion on Monday, April 20!

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us!

Christ Is Risen; He is Risen Indeed! West and East Rejoice!

Image Sources (Public Domain): Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection (1835) by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov; Jules Joseph Lefebvre - El Dolor de María Magdalena; Giotto di Bondone - Scenes from the Life of Mary Magdalene - Noli me tangere