Did you know Mary Magdalene was not actually a prostitute?
Listen to this song and read the lyrics to find out how this misunderstanding came to be!
Welcome to Roxy's page!
Here's a bit about me:
My name is Roxanne Andrighetti but most of my friends call me Roxy. I'm half-persian, half-italian, I grew up in Zaire where singing was just a part of life, so if there's one thing in the world that makes me happy, it's singing, brings me back to that blissful state of childhood... awww...
I also love dance,(salsa, merengue and hiphop are among my fav) I also enjoy writing, stories, songs and poetry, doing art and traveling.
A friend of mine told me about this website so I thought I'd post my stuff here and see what people think, I hope you enjoy it and thanks for stopping by! :)
Story behind the song
I was inspired to write this song for a project in my class with Dr. Theresa O'Donovan.
(Incase you're wondering- I'm a Religious Studies major so I love this kind of stuff!)
I wanted to tell the story of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany as it appears in the Bible and explain how they came to be known as less than they were, especially in the case of Mary Magdalene who is commonly mistaken for a prostitute.
***FYI***
Nowhere in the Bible does it refer to her as a prostitute!
Quite the opposite in fact, she was the first witness the resurrection, and it was to her that Jesus appeared and told her to spread the news to the rest of the disciples. For this reason she has been referred to as "the apostle to the apostles".
So where did the idea of her being a prostitute come from? It was an invention of Pope Gregory the great in the 6th century who decided to meld together the story of Mary Magdalene (who appears in Chapter 8) with that of a prostitute who appears in the Gospel of Luke.
(I encourage you all to look it up and see the truth for yourselves!)
I thought it was important for people to know the truth behind this common misunderstanding and to try to set things right, which is why I wrote this song.
Just a side note, I kept the song as factual as possible, so I took got most of my information from the Bible itsef, but if some of the facts or passages dont seem familiar it is because they are taken from the apocryphal text known as the Gospel of Mary which can be found a collection of ancient texts referred to as the Nag Hammadi Library.
*Please feel free to write me if you have any questions or concerns, this song isnt meant to be offensive in anyway, I just wanted to make known what has been ignored for so long and give Mary Magdalene the honour that was lost to her throughout the ages.
Lyrics
There was a woman,
Who anointed the Lord's head,
And he said, everywhere the gospel is preached
It will be said in remembrance of her
Now the irony is that Mark,
The gospel where this story is told
Doesn’t mention her name at all,
But in the Gospel of John they call,
They call her Mary of Bethany
Mary of Bethany, according to Luke,
She had no name and was a prostitute
Just because the story goes,
It’s said to prove that Jesus shows,
The mercy and forgiveness of our sins,
What ever happened to her role?
The one that we will never know
Why is her name not written in?
Now the question we must ask is why and how,
Her name was left out
Who was this woman we know so little about
And why was her name forgotten
Next was Mary Magdalene,
She was the Lord's companion
She cared for him and he loved her endlessly
She saw the resurrection,
And offered his direction
To the followers though they did not believe,
Peter he denied her,
Of ever being the leader
Like Jesus knew that she could be
Whatever happened to her role,
The one that we will never know
What if it's not all make believe?
Now the question we must ask
Is how and why,
Her role was denied
Who was this Mary
We know so little about
And why do we remember lies
Mary had a gospel too, in which Levi said
The Lord had loved her so devotedly
He had told her many things
He had shared with her teachings
Which she alone had helped the rest to see
But Pope Gregory, in his homily 33
He changed the story to conflate,
The Lukan sinner with no name
And declared her to be the same
As Mary found in Chapter Eight
So instead today we see her as a sinner
We've lost all sense of her true name
She was once the woman who became a leader
Today, today she's clothed in shame
When will the story change,
To help restore her name?
When will the lies all fade,
Will her glory rid this shame?
I pray someday,
That the truth will light the way
Give back the name that she deserves
So I sing for her story to be heard
And spread across this whole wide,
World from every side,
Know the truth that they now hide
So I sing for her story to be heard
In remembrance of her
