The Mary Magdalene Celebration 2025: You Are Invited

Finished painting, still untitled.

The colors on the palette are mostly for another painting I’m working on. But at the end of the day, I wanted to finish this painting, which had been waiting for a few weeks now. I had painted a different flower, and I didn’t like it, so I turned into a big sunflower.

As I painted, I thought about The Mary Magdalene Celebration and what would I write about it.

The Mary Magdalene Celebration is an event that celebrates the figure of Mary Magdalene through creativity. It takes the form of a Puerto Rican “promesa” or promise made to a saint in the Catholic tradition. When someone makes such a promise, on the day in which they “pay the promesa” songs are sung for the saint, food is served, and all the community is invited.

The idea of a promesa fit with what Raquel Z. Rivera and I were doing back in 2010, when we first presented our work at St. Marks on the Bowery Church in the East Village of New York City. Raquel presented her collection of songs and I my paintings, and we invited everyone we knew to join us.

A promesa usually takes place in the home of the person who offered it. The person who asked the saint for a miracle and received it, wants to pay back the grace by offering songs and food to everyone who joins the devotion. La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña has been the home of this promesa to Mary Magdalene for many years now. La Casa is the home where we can celebrate with the community and also where we can give shape to collaboration in the arts and receive the support and connection of an institution that has always welcomed artists and creatives, and offered us its space and resources freely and generously.

What did Raquel and I ask for when this 15 year old promesa started? Our prayer was that our art would connect with other people and find its place in the world.

As in past years, the format of The Mary Magdalene Celebration is simple. I introduce everyone before starting, share biographies, thank people and make space for the ceremony to flow without interruption. There is a simple artistic altar with 7 candles and a painting, and a red tablecloth, and we start with the opening dance by Corazón Tierra. She always creates a special choreography each year.

A drummer accompanies dancers and poets in certain moments through the ceremony. After the opening dance, we have a little drumming to transition to poetry. I have invited several poet friends to read a short poem in honor of Mary Magdalene. The poem doesn’t have to be about Mary Magdalene, but is offered to Mary Magdalene: an offering of creativity and inspiration, beauty and imagination. There is drumming between the poems.

After another transitional drumming solo, Raquel sings parts of her songs through zoom, directly from New Mexico, where she now lives. She tells a little of the story of each song and signs an excerpt.

The signing culminates with the last song, an instrumental composition complimented by the drummer and his musical group, Jorge Vazquez y el Corrillo.

As the last song plays, there is one more last dance, led by Corazón Tierra and a group of young girls, her students, my students. They dance with beautiful silk fabrics in the air and invite everyone to join! We dance until the music stops.

The Mary Magdalene Celebration is a heartfelt act of devotion to an ideal: that in communion through creativity, imagination and culture, we become fully human. This is what Mary Magdalene has inspired in us and what we cultivate by recognizing her presence, the presence of the Divine, in all acts of loving creation.

This year, once more, we celebrate. And open a space for all who wish to join this loving embrace.

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene