This fashionable bangle bracelet is adorned with an 18K gold vermeil medal of Mary of Magdala crowned with a genuine London Topaz. The words on the medal are french: SAINTE MARIE MADELEINE. The bangle is also 18K gold vermeil.

MAGDALA - An ancient fishing community of the Sea of Galilee was once an active city filled with fishermen, shopkeepers and townspeople. Situated at the base of Mount Arbel, Magdala was buried in obscurity until a few years ago. This is the town where Mary Magdalene lived and probably where she first met Jesus. Today Magdala has come to life once again. It is here that Jesus taught the multitudes and healed the afflicted, including a woman who made her hometown famous . . . . Mary Magdalene.

THE PROVENCAL TRADITION
Tradition has it that, after the execution of St. James in Jerusalem (son of Zebedee and Mary Salome), Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha and brother Lazarus were persecuted by the Jews of Jerusalem and imprisoned. The Jews were afraid of the crowd if they were to execute the prisoners so they towed them off the shores of Palestine in a boat without sails or oars or supplies and abandoned them to the open sea. Others in the boat included Mary Jacobe, mother of James and the sister-in-law of the Virgin Mary, Mary Salome, mother of the apostles James and John, Maximin, one of the seventy two disciples of Christ, Cedonius, the blind man who was miraculously healed by Jesus, Marcelle, Martha’s servant, and Sara, maid of the two Marys. Also in the boat were the remains of Sainte Anne, mother of the Blessed Mother. They did not want to leave her remains in Jerusalem because Jesus told them Jerusalem would be destroyed.

After narrowly escaping death during a storm at sea the boat finally came to shore on the coast of Gaul in a town now called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in Camargue.

Mary Jacobe, Mary Salome and Sara remained in Camargue. Martha traveled towards Avignon and ended up in Tarascon. Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Maximin and Cedonius traveled on to Marseille where Mary Magdalene began to preach. They ended up converting the whole of Provence. Lazarus became the first bishop of Marseille.

Mary Magdadene then went on to Aix where Maximin had already gone, some twenty miles north of Marseille. Maximin became the first bishop of Aix and Mary Magdalene retreated to a mountain cave on the plain of the Plan d’Aups known as La Sainte-Baume (47 AD) where she remained alone for the last thirty years of her life in contemplation, prayer and penance. She is said to have been lifted up by the angels seven times each day at the canonical hours and fed heavenly nourishment. The tiny chapel of Saint Pilon on the crest above La Sainte-Baume was built in memory of Mary Magdalene being raised by angels.

When the time of Mary Magdalene’s death arrived she was carried by angels to the oratory of Maximin, where she received viaticum. She died in Maximin’s arms and her body was laid in an alabaster sarcophagus in an oratory he constructed in the Gallo Roman town of Villa Latta or Tégulata, which after Maximin’s death became St. Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.

Maximin, Cedonius and Marcelle are buried in Sainte-Marie-Madeleine Basilique at St. Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. Mary Jacobe, Mary Salome and Sara are buried in the parish church of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Martha is buried in St. Martha’s Church in Tarascon and Lazarus is buried in the Abbey of St. Victor in Marseille, and the remains of Sainte Anne are in Apt.

BLUE TOPAZ
There are commonly three colors of blue topaz. SKY BLUE, SWISS BLUE, and LONDON BLUE. All of the colors are produced using a combination of heat treatment along with various kinds of irradiating processes. The color is permanent and will not fade. LONDON BLUE is the darkest of the three but very slightly greenish blue in hue.