Pics of Blondes: Images of Saint Mary Magdalene

While I was on hiatus, the feast day of Mary Magdalene, my favorite saint, passed us by on July 22. In honor of this friend of Jesus, Apostle to the Apostles and first witness to the Christian mystery, here are some images of Mary in art that I've collected over the years, just for fun. I'm fascinated by older religious images because, for many people, they conveyed the word of God in an accessible, moving way. Their content, even when it doesn't reflect current belief, reverberates in our faith of today because it retains the meaning revered by many of our predecessors in the faith.


A fourteenth-century statue uses Mary to infuse boring religious art with sex appeal. Good thing our artists today--filmmakers and the like--are more interested in giving her three dimensions. Cough.

On an altarpiece, Mary patiently attends the Pieta, distinguished by her alabaster jar. The connotations of sin that cling to Mary Magdalene come from her conflation with the biblical woman who anointed Jesus' feet--most scholars today distinguish between them. Although as a professor of mine once pointed out (a Lutheran art history prof in a suddenly philosophical moment,) who knows whom it might help to believe that a sinful woman ascended to a place of such high regard among Jesus' disciples? I think this is one of those instances where popular belief might have elements to teach us about the mystery of God that dry verifiable fact can't achieve. Good thing it's belief, after all.

A dusty Mary greets Jesus at the moment of the Resurrection.

Painted in her chapel in Notre Dame, Mary again kneels to Jesus. Look at the centurions: too busy gossiping about this woman to notice the miracle happening.

Love this rendition of the women surrounding Jesus on the cross; they look like nuns. Mary Magdalene was one of the women who stayed with the crucified Jesus when everyone else had run away.

Here, Mary waits outside the tomb in her Victorian dress; a lovely period imagining.


Seems odd to anyone who's seen a Christmas-card image of the Madonna lately, but blonde hair's been associated with sin in European art much longer than it has with purity. (Don't worry, girls, they're just jealous.) Mary's rich dress and regal posture in this image remind us that the biblical Mary is believed to have been a woman of means, since she could afford to travel with Jesus and support his ministry.


Mary Magdalene, be for us an example of love for Jesus that remains steadfast when hope seems gone. Be for us an example of the courage to proclaim the impossible truth. Pray for us, that we fallible humans may like you become dear to Christ through our great love, fierce loyalty, and brave witness. Amen.