Who was Mary Magdalene? A repentant prostitute who ended her days as a desert contemplative? The secret wife of Jesus? An evangelist and prophet? An apostle, a sinner or a saint, or all three?
How important was her relationship with Jesus for the Christian insurrection – the revolutionary mission of love by Jesus and his disciples to bring justice, peace and redemption to the poor and the marginalised everywhere and for all time?
In a series of imaginative, insightful poems, many of them beautifully illustrated with woodcut drawings by Ignacia Ruiz, Fran Lock explores the developing love between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, and the way it continues to challenge, comfort and inspire us with the ‘love that is stronger than death’.
Fran Lock’s most recent book of poetry arrived completely out of the blue into my inbox. I took a look – and didn’t put it down until the final word. I suggest you do the same. Discover again – or for the first time – how stories and persona we think we know so well are utterly confounding, as Lock catches stories of Mary Magdalene and Jesus off balance, grounding them again in breathless love stronger than death.
– Karen L. King, Research Professor of Divinity, Harvard University
Perhaps like Mary Magdalene herself, Fran Lock has had a fraught relationship to religion. But that has opened up her imagination. This meditation, strikingly illustrated by Ignacia Ruiz, helps to birth a spirituality that gives life. At a time when many people ask afresh – is there anything for me in Christianity? – here is a liberation theology, that liberates itself from the chains of oppressive patriarchal structures. It is an imaginative theology, revealed by the author’s and the artist’s innermost eye of the human heart.
– Alastair McIntosh, author of Soil and Soul and Poacher’s Pilgrimage
Fran Lock weaves words that bring to life a figure either lost or maligned in the history of church and culture – Mary Magdalene. Her poetry is sensuous and challenging, it flows over us stirring our imaginations. We are sad, angry and aflame with love that demands a retelling and a remembering. Lock gives us this, she strips away the false telling and opens a world of life-changing possibilities by unfolding a vision of the revolutionary ‘apostle to the apostles’ and the man she loved.
– Lisa Isherwood, Professor of Feminist Liberation Theologies, University of Wales
Love Is Stronger Than Death: Mary Magdalene and the Insurrection of Jesus, by Fran Lock, ISBN 978-1-912710-53-9, £10 inc. p. and p. for UK addresses, £10 plus £5 p. and p. for worldwide addresses, available here.
