Masterpieces of Art — The Magdalene

What a tragedy was the tragedy of Mary Magdalene, from the village of Magdala in Palestine!

The young girl who wore on her feet sandals of gold embroidered with the silken threads of Damascus...

Her cushions of the purple of Rome...
Her bed of rosewood...
And in her were seven devils...
The woman who sold herself to Satan, to sell herself afterward to God...

A passing, divine glance from the eyes of Jesus — he was walking beneath the windows of her palace when he raised his eyes upward... and saw her; saw her in her beauty and the abasement of her heart...

And that glance killed the beast that was in Mary...

And she became a pure woman; she became Mary the cleansed, the chaste...

And in this painting by the artist Guido Reni, he represents the woman whom God purified, raising her eyes to heaven, with atonement showing upon her.