When it comes to history, which stories get told? Which ones get left out? And why?
And of the stories that do get told, who gets to tell them? And how does this impact what gets handed down?
I have been ruminating on these questions as I continue to process a recent pilgrimage my husband, David, and I made to the cave where Mary Magdalene is said to have lived 30 years of her life:
According to the Tradition of Provence, she was expelled from Palestine with several disciples during the first persecutions against Christians after the Ascension. Entrusted to a frail skiff without sail or rudder, the exiles miraculously reached the Provençal shores at the place now called Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and became the first evangelizers of Provence. Mary Magdalene preached in Marseille in the company of Lazarus, then settled on this steep mountain, in the Grotto that has since borne her name. Like the beloved of the Song of Songs, “a dove hidden in the hollow of the rock, in steep retreats,” she was able to devote herself to prayer and contemplation in solitude (saintebaume.org/grotte).
Our pilgrimage coincided with the recent heat wave that engulfed southern Europe, so the cave was a sanctuary in more ways than one after our hike up into the mountainside through the blessed shade of an ancient forest.
A handful of fellow pilgrims rested on pews to our right as we entered into the silence of the cave grotto. A huge altar commanded gaze and attention. My eyes and body were drawn elsewhere, down a set of stairs, to an area below the main sanctuary.
The wet stone there felt cool beneath my feet. Candles stood lit. The light-filled turquoise of a pool of water shimmered behind a set of protective bars. Pieces of folded-up paper rested in the crevices of the cave walls. Rose petals and hand-scribbled notes lay strewn at the foot of a statue.
In the space between the pool and the statue, a large rock jutted out of the floor. I sat on that rock and prayed for a long time, with beads on loan to me from a friend. When I opened my eyes, it seemed to me that the shape of the rock directly in front of me was reminiscent of a woman’s face, hair swept up over her head, her eyes unfathomable, her expression unreadable.
And I began to imagine …
I imagine her heart had shattered into a million shards of unspeakable pain …
Only to be rebuilt into a castle of light-filled splendor that no one else could see.
I imagine her throat had moaned itself hoarse to a gasp and a whisper …
Only to sing a song of magnificent wonder that no one else could hear.
I imagine her eyes had closed in a heaviness that went beyond the grave …
Only to be opened beyond the clarity of a crystal-clear pool of water in sunlight.
Perhaps this is why she chose the solitude of a cool cave, in the company of angels and in sight of her Beloved, for the remainder of her earthly life.
I continue to imagine.
Love,