Relationship As a Sacred Way: A Review of Cynthia Bourgeault’s
The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
by C. Jenny Walbridge
The author, Cynthia Bourgeault, whose book, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, which was published in 2010 (Boston: Shambhala) is an Episcopal mystic and embracer of Asian techniques of spiritual self-maintenance. See her talking on the website, cynthiabourgeault.org ; she is also interested in enjoying the sea, and living in Maine. She has written many a book, and serves as part of the Center for Action and Contemplation, the “Mission” of which is “To introduce Christian contemplative wisdom and practices that support transformation and inspire loving action.” (at: https://cac.org/about/what-we-do/ )
Cynthia talks about “kenosis” in the book, …Mary…. This she defines as “self-surrendering love” (page 148). On page 239, I quote “…kenosis…must work directly with the heart’s deepest yearning. This is the great secret of kenotic love that so few Christians truly understand.”
Realizing that Mary Magdalene may have been Jesus’ sexual partner “creates a new beginning for everyone. Right at the heart of the faith we discover Christianity’s long missing archetype of relational wholeness,” (page 215). Bourgeault suggests that Mary Magdalene helps us see that “sex can be about transformation! Or in other words, to help us quit being afraid of human intimacy and start learning how to handle it better,” (page 216). Bourgeault writes that we can, because of an understanding of Mary Magdalene, consider the Christian message as one of love—even sacred lovemaking!
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh,”—Ezekiel, 36:26 , quoted on page 190.
“We talk of [Jesus’] ‘coming again’ only in terms of a final judgement or deathbed encounter,” (page 217). Like the 1973 dystopian movie “Soylent Green,” I suggest (in which the death ceremony—seeing color pictures of a beautiful Nature, the way things used to be— is pleasurable, though the killed are used for cannibalistic food), the Christian system suggests we find Christ in the sacraments and live ethically, awaiting a reunion in the next life. However, that is not what Jesus taught or what was felt by the earliest believers, Bourgeault notes. “They experienced Jesus as present: alive, palpable, vibrantly connected; their experience was that the walls between the realms are paper thin and that our embodiment is no obstacle to the full and intimate participation in relationship with him here and now…God is not only for us, but with us,” (page 217).
As Cynthia says on her website, “Wisdom isn’t knowing more, it’s knowing with more of you.” ( https://www.cynthiabourgeault.org ) “When you do conscious work, or any act of altruism, it is for the future.” ( https://www.cynthiabourgeault.org/quotable-quotes )