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Chapter 1: Who is Mary Magdalene and why is she significant?
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Hotel Matsissa rakennat lomasi juuri sellaiseksi kuin haluat. Aamu meren rannalla, päivä kaupungin sykkeessä. Ostoksia tai ei suunnitelmia lainkaan. Hotel Mats Espoon Matinkylässä. Skandinaavista tyylikkyyttä, merenläheisyyttä ja pääkaupunki vain metromatkan päässä. Viivi pidempään, koe enemmän. Katso majoitustarjoukset hotelmats.fi. LähiTapiola, samalla puolella.
At the top of a mountain in the south of France, at the chapel of Mary Magdalene, I finally attended a funeral no one else knew was taking place. It was a pilgrimage that had started nine days earlier in London.
So, this is it.
Next stop, Catwick Airport. No turning back now. You're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Natasha Serlin, a Jewish, divorced mother of two. For this week's Heart and Soul, I'm on my way to join a pilgrimage following in the footsteps of Mary Magdalene. Until a few months ago, I was not someone who had ever imagined going on pilgrimage, let alone a Christian one.
In fact, I knew almost nothing about Mary Magdalene. But months earlier, I picked up a book about her, and found myself unexpectedly captivated. These words from the book stayed with me. Mary revealed that love is within us. We are love and we don't have to earn or prove or deserve this fact.
And if we can recognise that we've never been separate from it and bring it forth outside of us, this is what saves us. For years, Mary Magdalene was represented as a sinner, a penitent prostitute. But in 2016, she was officially recognised by Pope Francis as Apostle to the Apostles and First Witness of the Resurrection.
And her vital role in Christian mythology and scripture became more widely apparent. So here I am, travelling to the Pyrenees in Europe, to trace the route she is said to have taken across France, to the cave at La Sainte-Bombe, where she is believed to have spent the last 30 years of her life. Hello, I feel like I know everyone.
On the pilgrimage, there are 11 other women from around the world, none of whom I've met before, but all with their own personal stories as to why this journey is important for them.
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Chapter 2: What personal journey does Natasha Serlin embark on?
I wanted to meet the woman who created this haven. So I'm looking at Alethea and her eyes are so sparkly and blue and beautiful and light and open. It makes me actually want to cry. Oh my darling, if I may say, I see it coming out of you too. We are most definitely sharing love with one another. It's two-way traffic. My name is Alethea Sophia.
I first came to this region in 1999 and within days, like yourself, I was captured. by some kind of spirit that was calling me on a quest. And tell me about what you've created here. It's an old summer schoolhouse for children run by the Catholic Church.
And even before then, where we're sitting right now, used to be a home for six to eight young Jesuit priests who were here for silence and solace and working the land in prayer. You are being invited into a home, a sanctuary, a refuge for kindred spirits who are all being drawn here by the rose, Mary Magdalene, the safety, the somatic ease of the place. It's a haven. It's almost her embrace.
It's her heart that we're landing in. How were you drawn here? How were you drawn to Mary Magdalene? From a very early age, I began to pray quite simply because I wanted to. My father was a Catholic, so he taught me how to, and he had what I would call a great love for Jesus and the Holy Spirit. He would often cry when praying because he was coming into contact with that love.
So I'm looking on in awe and wonder, saying to myself, I want some of this. So I prayed and And even as I was a drunken, raving teenager, I would still slump into bed at the end of my night or nights and start praying. So there I was, journaling away whilst praying. And in comes a voice from the same area as my Jesus place. And it said, if you really want to know me, come to France.
felt like Jesus, but I knew that's not his voice, but by golly, it's close. Within days, I was called to come to France. And so my own Indiana Jones journey began and just trying to figure out her sacred places. So I've been snatched. I can't leave. All I can do is embed myself further, which I am now finally surrendered to.
And create a beacon for other people to come and find sanctuary and find her in. Gosh, absolutely. I feel as if every part of me is in service to her, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit. In our age, in our age, our language, our storytelling, our transmission of the grace, free of religion, free of dogma, free of conscription. It's just, it's plentiful. It's generous. And it's here.
Actually, what you just said really touches me and resonates because for me, this is not a religious journey and it's free of dogma. I'm actually sitting in a spot just at the edge of some woods on a little bench surrounded by green with a Mary Magdalene statue behind me.
I didn't really understand why we were starting in Spain and going to see the Black Madonna, but now I do understand that really that was about the beginning, the Divine Mother. I feel like now we're in the right headspace to begin our Mary Magdalene pilgrimage. Thank you for your medicine.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Natasha face leading up to the pilgrimage?
One thing I love about everything that's being shared on this pilgrimage is that Mary Magdalene is all about love, unconditional love. In these few days, we've all become sisters.
We're no longer...
Listening to Amma share her story, I began to wonder whether part of the reason pilgrimage is experiencing a revival is because modern life offers so few rituals for navigating change. So many of the structures that once marked life's major transitions have thinned or disappeared altogether. And pilgrimage seems to offer something different.
time, ritual, slowness, community, and permission to mark change, an opportunity for transformation. Looking at the pilgrimage as a journey inward, a journey through one's history, feelings, emotions, and the different paths that lead to people's awareness of the divine light within them all.
And as I sit on an ancient rock in an ancient forest and breathe and listen to the birdsong, I have a single tear running down my cheek and I'm not crying so I don't really know why, but I can feel it trace its path along my skin. Finally, we reach the cave where Mary Magdalene is said to have lived for the last 30 years of her life. Just a few more steps. Lights illuminate the cave.
And I'm going to take a step over the threshold. As I enter, a friar lovingly cleans the candles. I close my eyes and I can smell the scent of incense and earth and water. It feels like I can smell centuries of devotion. It's early morning. The sky is pale blue, apricot pink, where the sun is going to rise soon. It literally looks celestial.
So we're going up to the top of the mountain where Mary Magdalene is set to ascend seven times a day to see the sunrise. Yeah, today's our last full day. Good morning. Good morning. It was at this point that memories of special moments with my beloved came flooding back.
And as we walk up the mountain this morning, I'm remembering him and how he was so good and so kind and took everything on to ease everyone else's burdens. And I'm remembering being in the forest with him. Noticing everything, like it was in technicolor. The trees, the colors, the sounds. Now we talked about it as I'm practicing it this morning, walking up the mountain.
I feel such an intense wave missing it. And I guess this is part of the magic of the pilgrimage, having the space to let these memories emerge and be held and treasured and released, released to the rose, no less treasured, but not carrying them as burdens, leaving a felt resonance, an imprint of joy, not grief.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of Montserrat and the Black Madonna?
Where grief has been, open your palms. Receive from above that heaven-sent love.
Vaihde Suomen suosituimpaan autovakuutukseen osoitteessa lähitapiola.fi. Voit voittaa samalla vuoden bensat. Palveluntarjoajat, LähiTapiolan vahinko- ja alueyhtiöt. LähiTapiola. Samalla puolella.