Rosa 'Mary Magdalene' - 29 June 2024

To survive in this century without conflict with people I never deal with the subject of politics and religión. My views are private.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic and I was sent to a Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas where my teachers were Brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross. This is the congregation that runs Notre Dame in Indiana.

I believe that these Brothers taught me very well and to this day I feel I am at an advantage because they taught me to think.

You do not have to believe in the bible, Christ or anything else involving Christian knowledge of  the ins and outs of Catholic doctrine.

I must add that while St. Thomas Aquinas and St Augustine were both saints, they were also philosophers and good thinkers.

As an example on how the instruction of religion by Brother Edwin Reggio, C.S.C. made me able to think, it had to do that his class was really one of theology. You can believe it or not but Catholic doctrine is interesting and discussing it can lead to Eureka moments.

Brother Edwin told us that the only suspicion that Christ may have known how to write is only present in one incident in the New Testament. Mary Magdalene (as the harlot) is about to be stoned. Christ kneels and scribbles(writes?) on the ground and says:

 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” John 8:7-11

When Brother Edwin told us that I was fascinated. I have never forgotten.

In 1992 I read in Spanish José Saramago’s The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. Because in this novel Saramago has Mary Magdalene teach Christ how to be a man (in bed), the author was pilloried. He left Portugal for the island of Lanzarote. When Saramago received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 his erstwhile fans in Portugal asked him to return. He did not.

Lanzarote - Saramago - 1922 - 2021

All the above is but a preface to show my scan of the English Rose, Rosa ‘Mary Magdalene’ which I adore as it has that magnificent scent of myrrh. I like it for another reason that is reinforced both by Brother Edwin telling us the St. John quote and Saramago’s account of Mary Magdalene as a fine woman.

The rose emerges pink (the harlot!) and fades after few days into a saintly white? I wonder if David Austin knew this when he named the rose.