St Mary Magdalene Feast Day brings global church to the table

As an encouraging show of global faith during lockdown, Barbara Russell, Lyn O’Fee and Russell Lyon report back on a Zoom Feast Day their Pohangina parish was invited to for churches named after St Mary Magdalene.

In May this year St Mary Magdalene church of Pohangina, Ashhurst, received an unexpected request from Ann Regimbal in the USA. She asked if we would like to be involved in a Zoom meeting to celebrate our Saint’s Feast day. Our first thought was, this is a spam contact, but on checking, it turned out to be a genuine request based on Ann’s desire for all the churches dedicated to Mary Magdalene worldwide to meet on a Zoom call.

We were in the first Zoom group with American and Canadian churches (who were very admiring of our Prime Minister and our national approach to dealing with Covid-19). The groups were a great cross-section of the Church, with Anglican, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic and Ecumenical Catholic parishes. A second Zoom group from the United Kingdom and the United States joined for a session the next day.

On the 22nd of July, twenty members of our parish met in the church to watch presentations from the USA and Canada. Reverend Mike Russell opened the session with prayer and then Lyn O’Fee followed with our presentation. We began our session with some interesting facts about New Zealand and our diocese, and each presentation gave a history of the church and its role in the community today.

A common thread of all the presentations was the effect Covid-19 was having. For example, some presentations were done from a home or office as many have not had services for four months. In fact, one member from the Berkeley, California church was stuck in Paris so Zoomed from there.

All the churches were having to think outside the box to continue their outreach. One church in California normally holds a feast for their Saint’s day, but the pandemic rules have meant they now had to change their approach. With the help of a local Sicilian restaurant, participants could purchase a takeaway meal and have a virtual meal from their homes. Lyn was invited to join them from New Zealand for this event after building a connection from the initial Zoom call.

The Anglican presentation from Ontario was given by the Bishop from his sitting room.

The organiser, Ann, concluded the session with a presentation on the Magdala Archaeology Project and the discovery of a synagogue in Magdala in 2009, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. It is believed this synagogue could be a place where Jesus went to preach and may have met Mary there.

This digital Feast Day was a heartening reminder of the ways God is moving in the church on an international scale, broadening our understanding of what we all have in common as well as our differences. We are excited about the potential to meet again next year and build on these global relationships.

By Barbara Russell, Lyn O’Fee and Russell Lyon