The Passion of Mary Magdalen: A Novel (Maeve Chronicles)

The Passion of Mary Magdalen: A Novel (Maeve Chronicles)
by Elizabeth Cunningham

The Passion of Mary Magdalen: A Novel (Maeve Chronicles)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Elizabeth Cunningham
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-01
ISBN: 0976684306
Number of pages: 640
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing

Book Reviews of The Passion of Mary Magdalen: A Novel (Maeve Chronicles)

Book Review: A Sensual Mary Magdalen Tells Her Own Story
Summary: 5 Stars

You thought people got angry about "The Da Vinci Code?" Just wait. Elizabeth Cunningham's new novel about Mary Magdalen will likely have many of the same folks hopping mad.

"The Passion of Mary Magdalen" is the second volume in Cunnigham's Magdalen trilogy, though enjoyment of this middle book isn't contingent upon reading the first one, "Daughter of the Shining Isle."

In the first book, Cunningham introduces Magdalen as a Celt, born and raised on the magical isle of Tir na mBan. If thinking of Magdalen as Celtic strains credibility, remember, this is a novel: a work of fiction. Maeve Rhuad, Magdalen's Celtic name, eventually comes to study at the Druid College, where she meets and falls in love with Jesus. Both of them flee the college in peril of their lives after they are perceived as having tampered with the ancient mysteries of a Druid rite. They separate, and Maeve ends up sold as a slave in Rome.

This book begins with Maeve on her hands and knees at the slave auction. When the auctioneer nuzzles his nose in her hindquarters, the feisty Maeve farts in his face. This attracts the attention of another buyer, a whorehouse madam, who sees promise in Maeve's actions: "There are men in this town who will pay good money to be humiliated like that." (p. 7) Maeve goes to work in her owner's brothel, where her fellow whores nickname her Red because of her flaming tresses.

However, don't expect this turn of events to set her up as the breast-beating penitent of the gospel story, who comes to the savior guilt-ridden over her transgressions of the flesh. Though being a slave is abhorrent to her, Maeve doesn't see sexual activity as a sin. In fact, it is in the whorehouse that she begins to realize she could use the intensity of the sexual experience for healing, and become "a conduit of some wild force, the mediator of it, the priestess." (p.27) And it is here that she first begins to realize, somewhat to her chagrin, that she is being drawn to the Goddess Isis, who like the God of Jesus, seems to be everywhere.

The book is aptly titled, because passion can indicate excitement, but can also mean suffering, as in the passion of Christ. And Maeve encounters plenty of both, while never losing her determination to be reunited with her beloved Jesus. As the story moves forward, she is sold again, this time to Paulina Claudii, the cruel daughter of a high-born Roman.

Cunningham has done her historical homework. The book contains nuggets of information on the time period: the hierarchy of slaves in a household, the status of women when they are faced with divorce, Roman style, the concept of sacred prostitution, and the cult of Isis, who was originally an Egyptian Goddess but whose worship was popular in Rome among all classes, from the high born to the whores and slaves.

The call of this Goddess, along with Maeve's insistence on finding her beloved Jesus, comprise the book's two main threads. Eventually Maeve becomes a priestess of Isis, establishing in the village of Magdala a temple of sacred prostitutes that becomes a haven for all strangers who come by in need of healing. In an interesting twist on the gospel parable, one fateful night a Samaritan brings to the temple a battered and beaten stranger he's found on the road. At long last, Maeve holds her beloved in her arms.

As the story unfolds, it is very hard not to like Cunningham's engaging Maeve/Magdalen character, who always leads with her heart, even when it gets her into trouble. Though the author follows the conventional gospels, her inclusion of Maeve in the gospel stories is her own design. Written in the first person, by turns irreverent and poetic, the book pulses with an eros that is true to the original meaning of the word as "life force." The reader sees all sides of life; joy and sorrow, love and hate, the pettiness and the stupidity as well and the power and the glory, often related with a wicked sense of humor. The apostles are human, with their own weaknesses and difficulties. If the Christian writer Annie Lamott wrote a book on Mary Magdalen, it would probably be very much like Cunningham's Maeve.

In the end, this is a love story. An old seer had prophesied to Maeve that she and Jesus would be lovers, but not of each other; lovers of the world. And love is what comes across most strongly in this enjoyable book. Just remember that Maeve's story as related here won't resemble the one you may have heard as a child. Rest assured this is not your mother's Mary Magdalen.

Summary of The Passion of Mary Magdalen: A Novel (Maeve Chronicles)

For the millions of readers fascinated by Dan Brown?s revelations about Mary Magdalen in The Da Vinci Code, here, at last, is their chance to meet the Gospel?s most provocative woman face to face?on her own terms.

Make way for a new Magdalen. Born on a Celtic isle to eight warrior-witch mothers, Maeve is raised to be as brave as any hero. In her stubborn, enchanting voice, she recounts her perilous quest for the young man, Esus, whose life she once saved from druid sacrifice. Captured and sold to a Roman Madam, Maeve is sustained by a fierce sense of identity, compassion for her sister whores, and her unquenchable love. When she wins her freedom and finds her lost lover, a stormy life begins for both as we follow the Passion story through the eyes of Jesus?s partner?disciple to no man. Not even the One she loves. By turns feisty and funny, outrageous and tender, this Celtic Mary Magdalen challenges all stereotypes, both old and New Age, and brings us to transforming encounter with the divine feminine made flesh.

Elizabeth Cunningham is the author of the novels The Return of the Goddess and The Wild Mother. She comes from nine generations of Episcopal priests. Though she managed to avoid becoming an Episcopal priest, she was ordained as an interfaith minister of spiritual counsel in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She balances writing with a counseling practice.

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