Magdalene's Day

Magdalene's Day, also known as Magdalene's Feast, is a holiday sacred to Marie Magdalene.
For most, the day begins with unmarried women collecting morning dew to cleanse their faces. Thereafter, a feast is prepared but not laid out. As all await the feast, dancing and revelry occur. Maypoles, popular in Gaul before the coming of the Holy Family, are often used as part of the celebration.
However, for the priesthoods of Magdalene and Jesus, the day begins quite differently. The ordained of both faiths gather together for a ritual - the Sacred Marriage. A priest of Jesus and a priestess of Magdalene are chosen. Usually both are young and recently ordained. While the remaining priests and priestesses gather around, the chosen pair join together, channeling Jesus and Magdalene as they make love, becoming, for a moment, the living embodiment of the love and passion shared by Jesus of Nazareth and Marie of Magdalene in life.
Once the pair reaches climax, the remaining priests and priestesses, and acolytes so honored to be included, move forward and receive a blessing from the couple. Once all are blessed, the couple retires to rest and perhaps make love some more. Meanwhile, those who received the blessings depart the Church and head out to the various fetes and households of the city.
Before being served, each feast, be it a royal feast or a peasant's dinner, is blessed by one of the priests, priestesses, or acolytes present for the sacred marriage. The process takes hours, which is why the meal is often long delayed, but eventually ever feast in France is so blessed.
Once a food is blessed, the feast can begin. All eat of the blessed food and thus are blessed themselves.
Magdalene's Day is also a time for courtship and love, in echo of the love shared by Jesus of Nazareth and Marie of Magdalene. Parents will seek good matches for their children. Young people will slip away in twos and threes and mores to make love. It is not uncommon for a priestess of Magdalene, there to bless the feast, to also ward the wombs of the young women present ere she departs so that they might enjoy themselves without fear.