All of us who were at convent schools, especially if our schooling was before Vatican Two, are likely to have memories of devotion to Mary the Mother of Jesus. Mine feature singing hymns which have mostly been excised (probably rightly, at least on literary grounds) from worship today, passing daily the Lourdes grotto in the playground, contributing to the flames of an array of nightlights in front of blue and white statues in May and October, and sitting in church garbed in a blue veil as a member of the Children of Mary. Despite all this (or even because of it?) I never seemed to 'catch' the kind of attitude to 'Our Blessed Lady' that used to be so characteristic of Catholicism. Judging by some of the contributions to this issue, I was not alone in my resistance. The other Marys were less evident: Mary of Bethany, always then conflated with Mary Magdalene (who seemed to receive little attention, positive or negative) left me slightly irritated because of Jesus' apparent preference for her over her more active sister. By choosing to take the three Marys most featured in scripture as the theme of this issue, we seem to have attracted a particularly interesting range of articles, and often opened the floodgates on memories. Several of our contributors seem in their youth to have rejected the adulation of the Mary, in some instances deliberately choosing Mary Magdalene, generally seen as a 'wilder' woman, as their model instead. More recent studies have however both reinstated the 'real' woman behind the devotion to the Madonna, and exonerated Mary Magdalene from the non-scriptural allegations of her sinfulness. We are fortunate in having several pieces, both scholarly and personal, which redress the balance, and there is no doubt that as a result, this is a very rich issue of Network.
Pat Pinsent