A Modern Approach to Ancient Tradition, Open to All
About Us
Our story starts in 1992, when, through the grace of God, our founders met and married.
Father Mark and Reverend Rachel Sutton founded the St. Mary Magdalene Community in Albuquerque in 2010. The community became a recognized mission of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion in 2012, with Fr. Mark serving as pastor and priest since its inception.
Rev. Rachel has been a dedicated leader from the beginning, embodying God’s love and grace through her compassionate care for the community. She was ordained as a Deacon in June 2024.
Surprise! We are a community who acknowledges that we don’t have it all figured out.
We are still searching for meaning, like many of you. To find meaning, we practice the traditional and ancient sacred liturgy and create our spiritual journey with new eyes and hearts of inclusion, affirmation, love, and a desire for oneness with all people. Instead of simply preaching, we offer a time for personal reflection, comments, and questions, on the readings of the day. We all learn from each other. Therefore, when we say we experience the Mass TOGETHER, that is exactly what we mean. Let’s do it together!
Our Ministry Identity
The Spiritual Community of St. Mary Magdalene is welcoming, inclusive and affirming of the LGBTQ+ community.
Two of our clergy are women and one of our clergy is transgender. We believe the clergy is for all people, including all genders, races, nationalities and sexual orientations or expressions, and all gender identities.
Our search for meaning can begin with the Sacred Liturgy
But it doesn’t end there! Some believe it is a recognition of the wisdom of the teachings of Jesus, others believe it provides a vehicle to see our “oneness” with all people. Whatever you believe about the Mass has great value. In our Community, we believe that the Mass is God’s (the divine, or Spirit or Consciousness or Her) love story to humanity.
In our search to know God experientially, not in our heads only, rather in our hearts and in our bodies, we have been guided by the Spirit into the exploration of Biblically adjacent texts such as the Gospels of Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Philip and other gospels from the Nag Hammadi library. We also incorporate teachings and ideas from Buddhism, Sufism, and other mystical sources. These additional texts open our hearts to deeper and broader experiences of a divine presence intimately acquainted with us.
If you’ve been raised to never look beyond the scriptures of the Bible for God this can seem strange or questionable, but we have found that the biblical principle of knowing a tree by its fruit has been a good metric for us. Are we becoming more loving? Are we bearing more of the fruit of the spirit? Yes, year by year we witness transformation in each other.
open communion
A search for meaning can be aided during the experience of the Mass by taking communion. That may mean to you that you simply desire more spiritual truth in your heart. That works for us!
Your decision to experience communion does not mean that you feel worthy or not, it simply means that you would like to experience divine love in your heart. The Grace of the Mass is for everyone.
OUR STAFF
Fr. Mark Sutton
Fr. Mark Sutton has been a devoted Franciscan Friar since 1958 and was ordained as a Franciscan Priest in May 1968 in Buffalo, New York. In 1972, he began a decade of service in Amami Oshima, Japan. Following his international work, Fr. Mark served as a parish priest across several communities in New Mexico, including Artesia, Carlsbad, Loving, and Malaga, from 1982 to 1990.
Rev. Rachel Sutton
Ordained as Deacon in June, 2024, Rev. Rachel has been a dedicated leader from the beginning of St. Mary Magdalene, embodying God’s love and grace through her compassionate care for the community.
Rev. Virginia Stephenson
Rev. Virginia Stephenson, raised in Southern Baptist churches, pastored campus ministries in Florida and New Mexico before leaving due to her church’s opposition to LGBT equality. An ordained Christian minister, student of comparative religion, and Oneness Blessing Giver, she co-authored two books on the mystical interpretation of the Bible, including “The Hidden Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools.”
Rev. Virginia has created and performed spiritual rituals for LGBT groups nationwide, including a healing ritual based on “The Descent of Inanna.” Now ordained in the Catholic priesthood, she serves as pastor and priest at the Spiritual Community of St. Mary Magdalene, focusing on the inner experience of God’s presence and Jesus’s teachings for daily life.
Rev. Damaris Martinez
A feminist since age five, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene informed Damaris’ spirituality.
Her passion is undoing the assigned worthiness of women by the Church and working to rebalancing feminine influence with the masculine, allowing it to more clearly be heard.
As a reverend as well as a therapist, her spiritual approach includes a Jungian lens to wholeness. An ideal church experience should be a person returning to innocence, and Damaris acts as a facilitator for others’ healing and growth.
Damaris loves to travel and is currently charting a course to visit a variety of Latin countries in the world, enjoying dancing as a way to connect the divinity of the body with the spiritual.
All Are Welcome. All Are Wanted.
We welcome people of all faiths, including those of no religion. We believe that all spiritual and religious paths lead to God, and as such that we exclude no one, and respect all the beliefs of all people. In our services, we celebrate the sacred teachings of the Liturgy, passed on from the early Church generations ago. But we take a modern approach to the liturgy, by inviting each person to offer feedback or comments on the readings. We love hearing what the scripture means to you, your life, and your spiritual journey. We hope that everyone feels comfortable sharing their aspirations, lives, and goals as we come together as a spiritual family. We need you with us on this journey!
Get in Touch with Us!
Phone
+ 1 505-288-0491
contactmagdaleneabq@gmail.com
Address
2801 Lomas Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
Get In Touch With Us!
Phone
+ 1 505-288-0491
contactmagdaleneabq@gmail.com
Address
2801 Lomas Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106