For a o be a virgin and a mot a virgin, nor a motalks about miracles. Mary, toget Joant , doo tima, a servant, epped into a boat, tted to take t ed. It beachem near Marseilles.
Dont run aion compared to ts of Syria, or Egypt, or tes of Cappadocia, ude, found arid, inable crevices in emplate te, Roman cities all along terranean coast every. t pleasant. t would hy.
But tern motima -- dont forget Fatima -- set up a c tes-Maries-de-la-Mer. tayed. But t-mot stop. Impelled by t off on one er limestone s cut , sun burned e fruit t ree of its o Manice dropped berries. tinian as famine, hairy as a dog.
Sil so t of te-Baume. Sil so test part of t. topped. t speak to anot see anoty-then, she was old.
Mary Magdalene, tours picture does not s o be a penitential garment, or, at least, t t s t on. Even t does not seem to disclose fles a fles o to ted by its o, from t up, to penitence, but, from t do, tion of .
Left-over finery? as it t sail in? Did so te-Baume in t? It doesnt look travel-stained or orn. It is a luxurious, even scandalous skirt. A scarlet dress for a scarlet woman.
tified t;; blue. But Mary Magdalene e contain a specific o describe a a moty as her profession.
Because Mary Magdalene is a o tay and make a church, where people come.
But , lying in front of t beautifully brus, fully repentant?
In Georges de La tours painting, times tafarians. Sometimes ricably mixed up o read o t t torments , repentant flesh.
Sometimes s never sated, unkempt, o s , sunic of it. On transformation from tuous Mary Magdalene, ty girl, taken in adultery -- on transformation is complete. Surned into sometrange, into a female version of Joist, a , as good as naked, transcending gender, sex obliterated, nakedness irrelevant.
Noers as Simeon Stylites, and otary cave-d Jerome. Ss er from to resemble an even earlier incarnation of t;; tist. Noo an existential situation in , enlig animality, sion but virtue.
But t it. tellos Magdalene, in Florence -- stered by ootirely annied by t smell tity t reeks from s rank, its ras icism of penitence, you can tell ed ;pleasurequot;. tification of turally to Donatello intended to be not black but gilded, t does not ligs mood.
Nevert t some anonymous Man of tenment on tour made ted encequot;.
Penitence becomes sado-masoc is its own reward.
But it can also become kitscory of Mary of Egypt. iful prostitute until sed and spent ty-seven years of ent in t, clotook e a mouted . Mary of Egypt is clean and fresays miraculously unlined. Soucime as oucite. Ss on a rock in t, combing out er urned to sand. e can imagine tle song.
Georges de La tours Mary Magdalene yet arrived at an ecstasy of repentance, evidently. Perured about to repent -- before , alto t t of till taking care of of a Japanese ed scroll -- s just , reminding us t sron saint of of culture, not left as nature intended. used trument of y. , even as sates upon till has a claim upon her.
Unless ually c into the candle flame.
e meet Mary Magdalene in traordinary er s of precious ointment, sonisically precise it is surprising it is represented so rarely in art, especially t of teentury, so often toget beautiful net o snare men as -- it, too. All in all, ture a repentant prostitute would make.
S time, and taken off time. Noself in time, t mirror ool of rade; it ss of ty s toget noead of reflecting duplicates the pure flame.
of a candle flame. I een first tively lig o ride t ense, to concentrate my mind upon an imaginary candle flame.
Look at t is te and steady it is. At te flame is a cone of blue, transparent air; t is to look at, t is to concentrate on. , I fixed all my attention on t t of t of trated enoug, it , too.
Soon time to tirely subsumed by t my body, doo finally let t t tention rated on the flame.
Once ts snuffed itself out; to me.
Mary Magdalene meditates upon ters than herself.
ture, for it is t silent of pictures, emanates not from t from te ligranced to enlig. S speak, speak. In t, s, maybe, but s speecer ter sated upon t speec as s aside a, is being born out of tercourse he candle flame.
But somet of tercourse already. S a sacred o mori, a skull.