11 May 2008...3:32 pm
The Myrrh-bearing Women
Today is the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women, and I went off to Mamelodi on my own, as Val has flu and her voice had gone, so she wouldn’t have been able to help much with the singing, but I missed her because I couldn’t remember the melody for Tone 2, and confused it with Tone 6.
Our usual classroom was locked, and so we used the one next door, and a Zionist woman joined us, in green robe and all. Our singing wasn’t very good, as it seems everyone else has had colds too, so I wonder what she made of it. It was mostly in North Sotho, and she spoke Zulu.
Only when we were leaving did someone mention that it was also Mothers Day, which I’d forgotten altogether. It’s not something that we’ve ever observed in our family, not even the Anglican one, which is in the middle of Lent, and had something to do with simnel cakes.
But the coincidence of Mothers Day with the Myrrh-bearing Women seemed quite appropriate for reflecting on women’s ministry in the Church. One of the myrrh-bearing women was, of course, Mary Magdalene, who, in spite of what Dan Brown said in his book The da Vinci code, was not a prostitute (that was St Mary of Egypt, remembered on the 4th Sunday of Lent) but isapostolos — Equal-to-the Apostles. And the Myrrh-bearing-Women were the very first to be entrusted with the good news of the resurrection.
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