Who is Magdala-Sophia?
This is the name I have taken as
a seminary student at the
Esoteric Theological Seminary.
My journey begins:
I was born into a family with an Episcopalian mother and an atheist father.
My mother’s family were 2nd generation protestant Irish. When my grandfather brought his
daughter (my mom) and his son to Tullytown in the mid 1920’s, their religious training was given over to my mother’s
aunts. The Great Depression was in full bloom and this had an effect on every aspect of their lives. Church was an expectable
and cheap form of socialization, education, and discipline. The Bible was used to keep inline, otherwise normal Irish tempered
kids/teens. The "waste not – want not" lessons were always preached with lots of Biblical reinforcements.
Church attendance was obligatory on a twice a week basis. My mom went to church with the Aunts every Sunday
and prayer meeting and choir every Wednesday evening.
My mother and father were married when each was 20. They started their own home and that seem to put a
serious halt to my mom’s church attendance.
My dad came from a Quaker family. His family can trace their
roots here in Bucks County Pennsylvania, back to an early land grant from William Penn (Wm. Penn’s country home, "Pennsbury
Manor" is just 3 miles outside of Tullytown). When daddy was a boy, regular attendances at the Meeting House were mandatory.
My dad, my Aunt Ellen and my Uncle Bill all grew to be very quiet, intelligent, political and community-oriented people. I
feel a lot of who they became, stemmed from their early religious training. Unfortunately, my grandfather was killed in a
farming machine accident when my dad was 14. My dad was 14, his sister 18, and my uncle was 19 and was very close to graduating
from Rider College in New Jersey,
at that time the youngest person to have done so. I’m sure a lot of pressure was felt on all of them.
By the time my father had turned 19, WWII was breaking out
in Europe. Suddenly his mother
fell ill and died of peritonitis from a burst appendix (This was before the age of Sulfa based antibiotics. They were first
used in 1943). I am told that my father never set foot in a church (except to attend a wedding or funeral) again. He told
me many times over the years (when my mother wasn’t listening) that if there were a God, he would have never let my
grandmother die. To the moment of his death, he never recanted his anger at the Gods.
Okay, so here I am, just a little kid, born in 1948. The
closest church to our house was a United Methodist Church. So although I was baptized into the Episcopalian Church, I went weekly (or more) to the Methodist Church. I went to Sunday School and
church, took parts in all the skits, plays, Christmas pageants, Easter events etc. I was VERY active. Mom sent me;
Daddy walked me around the block (until I got old enough to go by myself) and dropped me off. They attended all the plays
and things but never came to services.
Once in awhile my mother’s aunts would decide that I needed to be exposed to a "real" church and
I was carted off to St. James Episcopal Church. My great aunties and I went, rarely mommy and never daddy.
I was Confirmed and took Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church when I was 12. I had gone through a whole
summer of catechism instruction prior to the "Laying On Of Hands". I think this is where my confusions began to take root.
It was now 1960. The coming years were very confusing for anyone who lived through them. I was seeing, for the first time,
that everything that was taught in Church and Sunday School was not necessary gospel (oops, sorry about that; me bad!). Although
both the Methodists and the Episcopalians taught basically the same things, there were differences. Which was right? Was there
a right and a wrong or were they parts of the same whole?
Anyway, I’m now at the age where I’m testing the waters with my parents. I don’t want
to go to Sunday School anymore. Although the aunties still drug me off to St. James occasionally, for a time my formal religious
education was over.
I had grown up with a lot of Italian-Catholic families as
neighbors. My best friend was a Catholic and I often went to Church events with her. This was not to regular services but
usually some type of special function. I even went to their 8th grade, Catholic School prom with her cousin. Here is where I first heard about things like "Our Lady of Fatima" and "Our Lady of
Czestochowa".
These things seemed mysterious and maybe a little scary. I loved the Latin used in their masses; this also gave a hint of
mystery to what was going on.
Well I stumbled through the ‘60’s in the way
many did. Then I got pregnant at 16, married my still hubby, had my first daughter at 17; my second at 19 and the floor fell
out of my world at 20. My husband was drafted and sent to VietNam. While he was there, I found out that I needed an
emergency hysterectomy. I was in terrible pain from what turned out to be massive Endometriosis. While Neil Armstrong walked
on the moon, I lay in a hospital bed, having lost my ability to have more children.
The Red Cross arranged for my husband to come home on emergency
leave. While he was home, he suffered 2 episodes of "flash-back attacks". We rushed him to Walson
Army Hospital at Fort Dix New Jersey
each time. He was heavily tranquilized and sent home. 70 days after he had come home for my surgery, he was sent back to VietNam. By the way, he was an
artillery forward observer, he was in over 200 live combat actions in his tour there. He was wounded twice and received several
commendations.
When he first returned, we joined his family’s church,
a Southern Baptist Church (talk about confusion!). We taught Sunday School and tried to find "something"
in the church community. One day my husband stopped in the local tavern to pick up a six-pack of beer. Two the Deacons of
the church were sitting there, apparently feeling no pain, and began to preach to my husband. Several things of a nasty sort
were said to him about his having been in Viet Nam, the phrase "baby killer" was used. Then these drunken Deacons
began to preach to him about how he shouldn’t drink so much. Well, this to a man who in less than 5 months would snap
and end up in the VA Psychiatric Hospital, was just too much. We never went back to church again. To this day, my husband
denies the existence of God, even after his own STRONG Baptist upbringing. This was in the early 1970’s. He was hospitalized
for a total of over 4 years, usually in 4 to 5 months stretched, between 1970 and 1988, when they first treated him for post-traumatic
stress disorder. Prior to 1988, he had been essentially medicated and warehoused.
I just left God alone during these 20 years. I was trying to hold a marriage together, raise kids, exist
with an alcoholic who frequently "snapped out’ and had to be re-hospitalized, and simply survive. I went to nursing
school during this time and began full-time work.
Finally in the early 1990’s, I left my home, moved out on my own and began to seek God again. A friend
and I went Church "shopping". We were looking for a church home where we would feel comfortable. We tried several, but no
luck. Finally we gave up. My husband quit drinking (8 years sober now), I went back home and life has been pretty good.
I was still looking for a connection to what I thought God
was all about. I just couldn’t find it in organized churches. Then I read "The Woman with the Alabaster Jar" by Margaret
Starbird. Wham! Smack! Lightning Flash! I knew I had found what I was looking for. It was the Divine Feminine. The
misoginistic church fathers had literally driven the equality of women in the church into an underground "heresy". Heresy
meaning "against what the orthodox church has decided is the truth" In other words, what men have decided we should believe. These beliefs are NOT against anything written or decreed by
God, but only against the interpretations MEN have put upon those words and teachings. If the balance of the sacred masculine AND the sacred feminine could be restored, maybe the
world would find the peace and tranquility spoken about in the Old Testament (Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Joshua). I soon
found the Esoteric Mystery School and I knew I was home. I am currently studying in the Order of Mary Magdalene.
I am planning to go just as far as I can through this Order and The Church of the Way. I plan to ask for Ordination as a Minister
and pursue my Doctorate Degree in Theology. I would love to teach The Way to others.
Update,
I was Ordained on March 27, 2006 and
Received my Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) Degree on January 2, 2007
through The Esoteric
Theological Seminary.
Respectfully,
Presvytera Magdala-Sophia
of the Order of Mary Magdalene
