I. Marianne Faithfull, one of the most truly iconic figures of the so-called ‘swinging sixties’, died on 30th January. I say “iconic” carefully and deliberately – it is such an overused word these days – because in the 1960s Marianne Faithfull’s image – which is what “icon” means – came to represent the feminine aspect of the vibrant, but male-dominated, counter-cultural music scene. She broke on to that scene in 1964 with a top-ten record and a memorable appearance on ‘Top of the Pops’. The song, ‘As Tears Go By’, was written by Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, into whose wild circle the 17-year-old Marianne had already been drawn. And although it is, superficially, just a pretty pop song, Marianne Faithfull’s plaintive rendering already shows a depth that foreshadowed what was to come. She recorded the song again in 1987 and 2018, each recording revealing how she had moved – not easily – through what might be called ‘the Ages of Woman’.
Infamously, she was to succumb to the dark side of the sixties. Her music darkened too, notably – in 1969 – with the remarkable ‘Sister Morphine’, which she co-wrote with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Her single version was so controversial that it was pulled from sale because of its subject matter, and it also pointed to where her own life was soon to lead. Addicted to heroin, she was to plumb the depths – reduced to homelessness and vagrancy. Her career stalled and she might well have met with the sort of untimely death that claimed others in the rock-music scene. But she didn’t. She even recorded a set of songs in 1971, although it wasn’t released until 1985, under the title ‘Rich Kid Blues’ – a reference, presumably, to the privileged, convent school-educated beginnings from which, some might say, she had fallen. The recordings are very different from those she was making only a few years earlier.
The 1970s were years of eclipse and struggle. But she survived, she finally got clean of drugs, and she rebuilt her career with an extensive new catalogue of powerful and remarkably varied recordings, writing music as well as performing it in a re-born career. Her last album of songs, ‘Negative Capability’ was released in 2018. Her last album of all, released in 2021, was ‘She Walks in Beauty’. It was recorded after Covid had rendered her unable to sing and consists of readings from some of her favourite English Romantic poets – the ‘rock stars’ of an earlier era. She was, for all but a few months, an exact contemporary of mine, which is why her life, her music, her resilience, her survival her triumph and her death all touched me. But her reinvention through successive stages of the Ages of Woman – including a notorious relationship with Mick Jagger, three short-lived marriages and motherhood – also prompted reflection on how the Ages of Woman have been reflected in stories about two of the women around Jesus.
II. The subject of the Ages of Woman is appropriate for this time of year. Mothering Sunday falls on 30th March this year, while the Feast of the Annunciation (usually ignored by Unitarians!) falls, as always on 25th March. The New Testament has nothing to say about the childhood of the Mary who would become the mother of Jesus, but this didn’t stop some early Christians from writing about it. A probably mid-2nd century document called the Infancy Gospel of James tells Mary’s story from her own conception to the Nativity of her eldest son. At six months “she walked seven steps”. Aged one, she was presented to “the high priests, priests, scholars, council of elders and all the people of Israel, who blessed her with “the ultimate blessing.” Aged three, she was taken to the Temple to live there until the age of twelve, when the arrival of puberty required that she live elsewhere. At this point an old carpenter named Joseph was chosen, reluctantly on his part, to take Mary into his home with the intention of marrying her. Then the author of this gospel gives his own version of the Annunciation, with the “heavenly messenger” telling Mary that “the power of God will overshadow you”, meaning she will “conceive by means of his word.” Her response? “Here I am, the Lord’s slave before him, I pray that all you’ve told me comes true.” The visit to her kinswoman, Elizabeth follows, and here there is a reference to Mary’s age that is absent from Luke’s account of the same incident. We read: “She was just sixteen years old when these mysterious things happened to her.”
Joseph is none too pleased to find that Mary is pregnant. “How could you have done this?” he demands, “Why have you brought shame on yourself?” At this, Mary “began to cry bitter tears” and protests, ‘I’m innocent. I haven’t had sex with any man.” Joseph finds this hard to believe, and asks her, “Then where did the child you’re carrying come from?” Mary replies, with no reference to God or “heavenly messengers”, “I don’t know where it came from.” Only when “a messenger of the Lord” intervenes in a dream to put Joseph in the picture does he begin “to protect the girl.” Mary’s “bitter tears” at this point, when Jesus is conceived, may be seen as a foreshadowing of the “bitter tears” she was to shed at the foot of the Cross.
III. This story of Mary takes the Ages of Woman from conception through infancy, childhood and puberty to pregnancy and childbirth. I will look elsewhere for stories about the other woman who was central to the life of Jesus, namely Mary Magdalen. Luke tells us that Mary Magdalen was a woman of some substance who Jesus had cured, probably from some mental or emotional condition that had been interpreted as demonic possession. As this passage in Luke (8: 1-3) tells us Mary Magdalen was the leader of the “many” women around Jesus, and clearly an adult, although her age isn’t mentioned. Later gospel references make clear her pivotal importance in the Jesus community, right through to the moving encounter with the risen Christ in the garden on Easter morning. Oddly, though, she then disappears from the New Testament without a trace. She doesn’t disappear from the Christian records though, and is prominent in some non-canonical documents, particularly those in the Gnostic tradition. The Gospel of Philip, for example, tells of a close and intimate relationship between Mary and Jesus, even telling us that, “Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.” Mary Magdalen’s prominence in the inner circle of the disciples is also testified to in the Gospel of Mary where her own encounter with the risen Christ puts her in a position spiritually superior to that of her sceptical, even hostile male colleagues. They are dispirited and uncertain, but Mary tells them, “Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for his grace will be entirely with you and protect you. But rather let us praise his greatness, for he has prepared us.” Peter acknowledges Mary’s position, telling her, “Sister, we know that the Saviour loved you more than the rest of women. Tell us the words of the Saviour which you remember.” She does, but the sexist refusal of some disciples to believe her reduces her to tears. But one, Levi, comes to her defence with words that are a rebuke to every misogynist in the Church: “if the Saviour has made her worthy, who are you to reject her?”
These sources, canonical and non-canonical, portray a Mary Magdalen who is mature and confident, but also loving and resilient. But for Mary Magdalen’s youth and her later years I turn to a modern interpretation, namely the work of the Lebanese-American poet, Kahlil Gibran. In his book, ‘Jesus, the Son of Man’, he imagines the response of a young Mary to her first encounter with Jesus and then her reflection on Jesus by an older Mary, thirty years after his death.
Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House 